If human life were long enough to find the ultimate theory, everything would have been solved by previous generations. Nothing would be left to be discovered.

Many people do not like the idea that time has a beginning, probably because it smacks of divine intervention. (The Catholic Church, on the other hand, seized on the big bang model and in 1951 officially pronounced it to be in accordance with the Bible.

The human race does not have a very good record of intelligent behavior.

It would be very difficult to explain why the universe should have begun in just this way, except as the act of a God who intended to create beings like us.

It often happens that I have an idea, but then I try to fill in the intermediate steps and find they don't work, so I have to give it up.

In his eyes shone the reflection of the most beautiful planet in the Universe---a planet that is not too hot and not too cold; that has liquid water on the surface and where the gravity is just right for human beings and the atmosphere is perfect for them to breathe; where there are mountains and deserts and oceans and islands and forests and trees and birds and plants and animals and insects and people---lots and lots of people. Where there is life. Some of it, possibly, intelligent.

A few years ago, the city council of Monza, Italy, barred pet owners from keeping goldfish in curved bowls... saying that it is cruel to keep a fish in a bowl with curved sides because, gazing out, the fish would have a distorted view of reality. But how do we know we have the true, undistorted picture of reality?