For, after all, in science one achieves the greatest impact (and often the greatest headlines) not by going along with the herd, but by bucking against it.

The root cause of the looming energy problem - and the key to easing environmental, economic and religious tensions while improving public health - is to address the unending, and unequal, growth of the human population. And the one proven way to reduce fertility rates is to empower young women by educating them.

The universe does not care what we want.

For many, to live in a universe that may have no purpose, and no creator, is unthinkable.

The one experience that I hope every student has at some point in their lives is to have some belief you profoundly, deeply hold, proved to be wrong because that is the most eye-opening experience you can have, and as a scientist, to me, is the most exciting experience I can ever have.

[The writers of the holy books] did not even know the earth revolves around the sun. Why are we listening?

Organized religion, wielding power over the community, is antithetical to the process of what modern democracy should define as liberty. The sooner we are without it, the better.