The brain is like a muscle. When it is in use we feel very good. Understanding is joyous. Read Summary
Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge. Read Summary
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Read Summary
We are the representatives of the cosmos; we are an example of what hydrogen atoms can do, given 15 billion years of cosmic evolution. Read Summary
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. Read Summary
The dangers of not thinking clearly are much greater now than ever before. It's not that there's something new in our way of thinking - it's that credulous and confused thinking can be much more lethal in ways it was never before. Read Summary
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. Read Summary
We hunger to understand, so we invent myths about how we imagine the world is constructed - and they're, of course, based upon what we know, which is ourselves and other animals. So we make up stories about how the world was hatched from a cosmic egg or created after the mating of cosmic deities or by some fiat of a powerful being. Read Summary
Our species needs, and deserves, a citizenry with minds wide awake and a basic understanding of how the world works. Read Summary
We've arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. Read Summary
Most of the people that I deal with are human. So I've had a lot of experience with that. Read Summary
We're in very bad trouble if we don't understand the planet we're trying to save. Read Summary
When you make the finding yourself - even if you're the last person on Earth to see the light - you'll never forget it. Read Summary
For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love. Read Summary
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. Read Summary
If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe. Read Summary
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. Read Summary
In our obscurity - in all this vastness - there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. Read Summary
There is a wide, yawning black infinity. In every direction, the extension is endless; the sensation of depth is overwhelming. And the darkness is immortal. Where light exists, it is pure, blazing, fierce; but light exists almost nowhere, and the blackness itself is also pure and blazing and fierce. Read Summary
The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent. Read Summary