For me, science is just a bunch of tools - it's like playing the violin.

You ask: what is the meaning or purpose of life? I can only answer with another question: do you think we are wise enough to read God's mind?

The greatest unsolved mysteries are the mysteries of our existence as conscious beings in a small corner of a vast universe.

If you want to have a program for moving out into the universe, you have to think in centuries not in decades.

A good scientist is a person with original ideas. A good engineer is a person who makes a design that works with as few original ideas as possible. There are no prima donnas in engineering.

Technology must be guided and driven by ethics if it is to do more than provide new toys for the rich.

The idea that global warming is the most important problem facing the world is total nonsense and is doing a lot of harm.

Unfortunately the global warming hysteria, as I see it, is driven by politics more than by science.

In the end it is how you fight, as much as why you fight, that makes your cause good or bad.

So long as you have courage and a sense of humor, it is never too late to start life afresh.

Technology is a gift of God. After the gift of life it is perhaps the greatest of God's gifts. It is the mother of civilizations, of arts and of sciences.

Many would be cowards if they had courage enough.

Wisdom is bestowed by the Creator.

I have a really hard time connecting to music that doesn't feel like I'm somehow solving a puzzle that applies to my life.

My life sucks when I’m only half-aware of it. If I quit drinking and saw what it’s really like, I’d probably jump off a bridge.

Beauty is the result of realizing what is special about you and not focusing on the things you don't like.

The Law ... is perfection of reason.

The complexities of what we are given in life are vast and beyond comprehension.

Money does not corrupt people. What corrupts people is lack of affection ... Money is simply the bandage which wounded people put over their wounds.

To read Helen Macdonald's memoir, H Is for Hawk, is to feel as though Emily Bronte just turned up at your door, trailing all the windy, feral outdoors into your living room.

Where wealth and freedom reign contentment fails, And honour sinks where commerce long prevails.