“The cure for a fallacious argument is a better argument, not the suppression of ideas.”

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

We are all stardust.

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

Books are like seeds. They can lie dormant for centuries and then flower in the most unpromising soil.

I consider it an extremely dangerous doctrine, because the more likely we are to assume that the solution comes from the outside, the less likely we are to solve our problems ourselves.

The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent.

I would suggest that science is, at least in my part, informed worship.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Science is a way to not fool ourselves.

Writing is the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew one another.

Writing is the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew one another.

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

Science is an attempt, largely successful, to understand the world, to get a grip on things, to get hold of ourselves, to steer a safe course.

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

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

One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for 1,000 years. To read is to voyage through time.

You cannot be sure that you are right unless you understand the arguments against your views better than your opponents do.

In my personal life I’m not very tough at all, but in my professional life, having to deal with being a woman in a man’s world, I’m really tough. I never back down from a fight or an argument. I’m willing to stand there toe to toe with anyone.

The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.

The best words for resolving a disagreement are, “I could be wrong; I often am.” It’s true.

Arguments about Scripture achieve nothing but a stomachache and a headache.

I’ve put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that’s the only way of insuring one’s immortality.

To invoke solely the weaker arguments and yet triumph is an art worth more than a hundred thousand drachmae.

Surely you do not believe in the gods. What’s your argument? Where’s your proof?