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.

There is a continuum between science and philosophy. As Fichte said (but did not practice), philosophy should be the science of sciences.

A distinguished cognitive neuroscientist confessed to me that, because of his religious upbringing, he could not get rid of psychoneural dualism. The idea that one ceases to be after death was too painful to him.

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.

From a historical viewpoint, religion is just a kind of superstition, and from a political viewpoint it is a tool of social control.

I believe that modern science supports free will, in showing that the brain can act spontaneously, not only in response to external stimuli.

Only the stupid and the wicked can fear rational criticism.