He had the arrogance of the believer, but none of the humility of the deeply religious.

Curiosity illuminates the correct path to anything in life. If you're not curious, that's when your brain is starting to die.

Your conscious life is an elaborate after-the-fact rationalization of things you really do for other reasons.

What the neurology tells us is that the self consists of many components, and the notion of one unitary self may well be an illusion.

A culture without mythology is not really a civilisation.

People often ask how I got interested in the brain; my rhetorical answer is: 'How can anyone NOT be interested in it?' Everything you call 'human nature' and consciousness arises from it.

With the arrival of humans, it has been said, the universe has suddenly become conscious of itself. This, truly, it the greatest mystery of all.

Great art allows you to transcend your mortal frame and to reach for the stars. I think great science does the same thing.

Our ability to perceive the world around us seems so effortless that we tend to take it for granted.

The adage that fact is stranger than fiction seems to be especially true for the workings of the brain.

A genius is somebody who seemingly just reaches out of nowhere.

It's so clear to me now: the memorizing of a fake prayer, the symbolization of objects, the struggle to relate to the invisible - I needed a religion. I was lost.

The journey I'm taking is inside me. Just like blood travels down veins, what I'm seeing is my inner self and what seems threatening is just the echo of the fear in my heart.

Its actually really important that you succeed at what youre succeeding at, but that isnt going to be the measure of your life.

In science, read, by preference, the newest works; in literature the oldest.

This art, born of genius and good taste, can become beautiful and varied to an infinite degree.

Find something you love, and go after it, with all of your heart.

It's almost impossible to read a fine thing without wanting to do a fine thing.

We begin life with loss. We are cast from the womb without an apartment, a charge plate, a job or a car. We are sucking, sobbing, clinging, helpless babies.

A warrior knows that the farthest-flung star in the Universe reveals itself in the things around him.

And political parties, overanxious for vote catching, become tolerant to intolerant groups.