Communication accompanies social transactions and can instruct or stultify, mobilize or intimidate, but it is no substitute for production, collaboration and fight.

Philosophy can help laymen spot and reject the numerous pseudoscientific beliefs that survive in the media, such as the fantasies of psychoanalysts, evolutionary psychologists, and economic equilibrium theorists.

To me, work is not a burden but my main hobby. This is why I always take work with me when I go on holidays. Moreover, that's when new projects occur to me: while contemplating beautiful landscapes or seascapes.

The motto of science is not just Pauca but rather Plurima ex paucissimis - the most out of the least.

Of course you cannot free yourself from the laws of nature; but the laws of nervous systems are not the same as the physical laws.

Only the stupid and the wicked can fear rational criticism.

My Third-World roots remind me that the vast majority of our fellow human beings live hungry, sick, and uneducated, and that most social scientists, even in that world, ignore that ugly reality. This is why my papers in mathematical sociology deal not with free choice among 30 flavors of ice-cream, but with social structure, social cohesion, and social marginality.