The fuel on which science runs is ignorance. Science is like a hungry furnace that must be fed logs from the forests of ignorance that surround us. In the process, the clearing we call knowledge expands, but the more it expands, the longer its perimeter and the more ignorance comes into view.

Prosperity has brought complications. Our lives are busier, faster, more stressful. They're nostalgic for a simpler, slower time.

Trade is 10 times as old as farming.

A cumulative change of less than 2°C by the end of this century will do no net harm. It will actually do net good [...] rainfall will increase slightly, growing seasons will lengthen, Greenland's ice cap will melt only very slowly, and so on.

Ecology, like genetics, is not about equilibrium states. It is about change, change and change. Nothing stays the same forever.

It is not a zero sum game. The simple idea of the gains from trade lies at the heart of the modern and the ancient economy, not the power of capital. There is nothing else to it.

Our minds have been built by selfish genes, but they have been built to be social, trustworthy and cooperative.