Everything here is alive thanks to the living of everything else.

It is from the progeny of this parent cell that we all take our looks; we still share genes around, and the resemblance of the enzymes of grasses to those of whales is in fact a family resemblance.

The capacity to blunder slightly is the real marvel of DNA. Without this special attribute, we would still be anaerobic bacteria and there would be no music.

Statistically, the probability of any one of us being here is so small that you'd think the mere fact of existing would keep us all in a contented dazzlement of surprise.

In real life, every field of science is incomplete, and most of them - whatever the record of accomplishment during the last 200 years - are still in their very earliest stages.

We owe our lives to the sun... How is it, then, that we feel no gratitude?

The greatest single achievement of nature to date was surely the invention of the molecule DNA.

It is in our genes to understand the universe if we can, to keep trying even if we cannot, and to be enchanted by the act of learning all the way.

I would send the complete works of Johann Sebastian Bach into outer space on the Voyager spacecraft. But that would be boasting.

Animals have genes for altruism, and those genes have been selected in the evolution of many creatures because of the advantage they confer for the continuing survival of the species.

We leave traces of ourselves wherever we go, on whatever we touch.

Not everyone Jesus tried to turn back from the brink of destruction responded—nor will they with us.

Somehow life had become a story problem, and William was horrible at math.

Pictures you have taken have an influence on those that you are going to make. That's life!

Compassion is a piece of vocabulary that could change us if we truly let it sink into the standards to which we hold ourselves and others.

Six, or at most seven, hours' sleep is, for a constancy, as much as you or anybody else can want; more is only laziness and dozing, and is, I am persuaded, both unwholesome and stupefying.

The simplest and bravest way to counter the plight of disheartenment is to move toward what is precious.

Today give up false mental attachments and beliefs! Free yourself from the delusion that anything external can fulfill the hunger of your soul for God-Consciousness.

What the media are telling you to be afraid of are the wrong things. Fear is a necessary ingredient of our survival instincts.

Not being anxious requires a level of humility, doesn't it? It does, I think. It's not all about you.

Direct thought is not an attribute of feminity. In this, women are now centuries behind man.