“If history and science have taught us anything, it is that passion and desire are not the same as truth.”

Without a trace of irony I can say I have been blessed with brilliant enemies. I owe them a great debt, because they redoubled my energies and drove me in new directions.

I’m very much a Christian in ideals and ethics, especially in terms of belief in fairness, a deep set obligation to others, and the virtues of charity, tolerance and generosity that we associate with traditional Christian teaching.

Blind faith, no matter how passionately expressed, will not suffice.

Competing is intense among humans, and within a group, selfish individuals always win. But in contests between groups, groups of altruists always beat groups of selfish individuals.

Political ideology can corrupt the mind, and science.

Because the living environment is what really sustains us.

Every major religion today is a winner in the Darwinian struggle waged among cultures, and none ever flourished by tolerating its rivals.

Ants are the dominant insects of the world, and they’ve had a great impact on habitats almost all over the land surface of the world for more than 50-million years.

What’s been gratifying is to live long enough to see molecular biology and evolutionary biology growing toward each other and uniting in research efforts.

Aim high. Behave honorably. Prepare to be alone at times, and to endure failure.

People respect nonfiction but they read novels.

You are capable of more than you know. Choose a goal that seems right for you and strive to be the best, however hard the path.

I tend to believe that religious dogma is a consequence of evolution.

By any reasonable measure of achievement, the faith of the Enlightenment thinkers in science was justified.

We should preserve every scrap of biodiversity as priceless while we learn to use it and come to understand what it means to humanity.

There doesn’t seem to be any other way of creating the next green revolution without GMOs.

Anything you ever make that matters takes a long time.

When you’ve done ‘Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death,’ you can handle anything!

The government can’t give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody.

Prayer can do anything God can do and God can do anything!

Money doesn’t have anything have anything to do with the magnificence of a person.

Anything with no head is dead, and anything with two heads is a freak.

I didn’t know anything about fashion. I couldn’t believe it when I got here.

Men throw broken things away, but God never uses anything until he first breaks it.