The urge to discover, to invent, to know the unknown, seems so deeply human that we cannot imagine our history without it.
ALAN LIGHTMANAs both a scientist and a humanist myself, I have struggled to understand different claims to knowledge, and I have eventually come to a formulation of the kind of religious belief that would, in my view, be compatible with science.
More Alan Lightman Quotes
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In fiction writing ideas have to be handled extremely carefully.
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I certainly believe there are forces bigger than ourselves, and that we should be searching, individually, for meaning in our lives. But I don’t believe there’s a supreme being, an intelligence that created everything.
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Suppose time is a circle, bending back on itself. The world repeats itself, precisely, endlessly.
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There is a cultural diversity that’s very valuable, and it’s valuable to have different ways of looking at the world.
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All of these things can occur with or without God. I do not believe in the existence of God, but I consider myself a spiritual person in the manner I have just described. I call myself a spiritual atheist. I would imagine that many people are spiritual atheists.
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All writers have roots they draw from – travel, work, family. My roots are in science and it is fertile ground for fiction.
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Each person who gets stuck in time gets stuck alone.
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I reached for some principle that had been subconscious in me and lifted it into consciousness.
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Everyone shares the same fate.
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The tragedy of this world is that no one is happy, whether stuck in a time of pain or joy.
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Authenticity and sincerity were the most important unifying principles of all these apparently different essays.
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It’s not necessarily a large number of people that affect the culture. You don’t count the number of influential voices, you weigh them. A hundred people can affect the culture.
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Rather, each act is an island in time, to be judged on its own. … It is a world of impulse. It is a world of sincerity.
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Each time is true, but the truths are not the same.
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The second squirms and wriggles like a bluefish in a bay. The first is unyielding, predetermined. The second makes up its mind as it goes along.
ALAN LIGHTMAN