“A child raised on a desert island, alone, without social interaction, without language, and thus lacking empathy, is still a sentient being.”

The problem is that no ethical system has ever achieved consensus. Ethical systems are completely unlike mathematics or science. This is a source of concern.

A scholar is just a library’s way of making another library.

Life itself is just a thin coat of paint on the planet, and we hold the paintbrush.

Human consciousness is just about the last surviving mystery.

The chief trick to making good mistakes is not to hide them-especially not from yourself.

Religions have depended on the relative isolation and ignorance of their flocks, forever and this is all breaking down.

True, you don’t have to be religious to be crazy, but it helps. Indeed, if you are religious, you don’t have to be crazy in the medically certifiable sense in order to do massively crazy things.

Not a single one of the cells that compose you knows who you are, or cares.

We need to let our children grow up to face the world armed with knowledge, with much more knowledge than we ourselves had at their age. It is scary, but the alternative is worse.

I think religion for many people is some sort of moral viagra.

The way evolution always discovers reasons is by retroactive endorsement.

The evidence for evolution pours in, not only from geology, paleontology, biogeography, and anatomy, but of course from molecular biology and every other branch of the life sciences.

Cost is always an object – the second law of thermodynamics sees to that.

In the long run I certainly hope information is the cure for fanaticism, but I am afraid information is more the cause than the cure.

Darwin’s idea of natural selection makes people uncomfortable because it reverses the direction of tradition.

The haven all memes depend on reaching is the human mind, but a human mind is itself an artifact created when memes restructure a human brain in order to make it a better habitat for memes.

Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.

All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair.

My mother is a realist, and she’s had biological and adoptive children, and she said it’s no different: No matter what, they’re putting a stranger into your arms. You don’t know them yet.

As a parent, the responsible thing to do – if you love your child – is to vaccinate your child.

Women’s liberation is just a lot of foolishness. It’s men who are discriminated against. They can’t bear children. And no one is likely to do anything about that.

The greatest legacy one can pass on to one’s children and grandchildren is not money or other material things accumulated in one’s life, but rather a legacy of character and faith.

I’m dreaming of a white Christmas, Just like the ones I used to know, Where the tree tops glisten And children listen To hear sleigh bells in the snow.

When I was a kid, I’d spray paint my hair, cut clothes up.