The brain is like a muscle. When it is in use we feel very good. Understanding is joyous.

If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits?

Our species needs, and deserves, a citizenry with minds wide awake and a basic understanding of how the world works.

Personally, I would be delighted if there were a life after death, especially if it permitted me to continue to learn about this world and others, if it gave me a chance to discover how history turns out.

The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition.

For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.

If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.

When you make the finding yourself - even if you're the last person on Earth to see the light - you'll never forget it.

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.

I am often amazed at how much more capability and enthusiasm for science there is among elementary school youngsters than among college students.

But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.

We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.

All of the books in the world contain no more information than is broadcast as video in a single large American city in a single year. Not all bits have equal value.

We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.

The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent.

It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.

The brain is like a muscle. When it is in use we feel very good. Understanding is joyous.

Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge.

Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep thoughts can be winnowed from deep nonsense.

Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.

I can find in my undergraduate classes, bright students who do not know that the stars rise and set at night, or even that the Sun is a star.

We've arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology.

A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism.

For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.

Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Extinction is the rule. Survival is the exception.

I don't know where I'm going, but I'm on my way.

Their position seems to be that their God is so great he doesn't even have to exist.

Where we have strong emotions, we're liable to fool ourselves.

You could just as well say that an agnostic is a deeply religious person with at least a rudimentary knowledge of human fallibility.

Our ancestors lived out of doors. They were as familiar with the night sky as most of us are with our favorite television programs.

Our ancestors worshipped the Sun, and they were not that foolish. It makes sense to revere the Sun and the stars, for we are their children.

Be grateful everyday for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides.

The passion to explore is at the heart of being human.

Better by far to embrace the hard truth than a reassuring fable. If we crave some cosmic purpose then let us find ourselves a worthy goal.

Preserve and cherish the pale blue dot the only home weve ever known.

Every one of us is in the cosmic perspective precious. If a human disagrees with you let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies you will not find another.

The Cosmos is all that is or was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us there is a tingling in the spine a catch in the voice a faint sensation as if a distant memory of falling from a height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena.

The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it but the way those atoms are put together.

We are at a crossroads in human history. Never before has there been a moment so simultaneously perilous and promising. We are the first species to have taken evolution into our own hands.

If it can be destroyed by the truth it deserves to be destroyed by the truth.

It is of interest to note that while some dolphins are reported to have learned English up to 50 words used in correct context no human being has been reported to have learned dolphinese.

There is perhaps no better a demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else at least in the near future to which our species could migrate. Visit yes. Settle not yet. Like it or not for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

Its hard to kill a creature once it lets you see its consciousness.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Exploration is in our nature. We began as wanderers and we are wanderers still. We have lingered long enough on the shores of the cosmic ocean. We are ready at last to set sail for the stars.