A man does not attain the status of Galileo merely because he is persecuted; he must also be right.

If genius has any common denominator, I would propose breadth of interest and the ability to construct fruitful analogies between fields.

The enemy of knowledge and science is irrationalism, not religion

I like to summarize what I regard as the pedestal-smashing messages of Darwin's revolution in the following statement, which might be chanted several times a day, like a Hare Krishna mantra, to encourage penetration into the soul: Humans are not the end result of predictable evolutionary progress, but rather a fortuitous cosmic afterthought.

When people learn no tools of judgment and merely follow their hopes, the seeds of political manipulation are sown.

The only universal attribute of scientific statements resides in their potential fallibility. If a claim cannot be disproven, it does not belong to the enterprise of science.

We are the offspring of history, and must establish our own paths in this most diverse and interesting of conceivable universes—one indifferent to our suffering, and therefore offering us maximum freedom to thrive, or to fail, in our own chosen way.