Journalists say that when a dog bites a man, that is not news, but when a man bites a dog, that is news ... Thanks to the mathematics of combinatorics, we will never run out of news.

Art works because it appeals to certain faculties of the mind. Music depends on details of the auditory system, painting and sculpture on the visual system. Poetry and literature depend on language.

Why are empirical questions about how the mind works so weighted down with political and moral and emotional baggage?

All our behaviours are a result of neurophysiological activity in the brain. There is no reason to believe there is any magic going on.

I suspect music is auditory cheesecake, an exquisite confection crafted to tickle the sensitive spots of... our mental faculties.

Evolutionary psychology is one of four sciences that are bringing human nature back into the picture.

Thanks to the redundancy of language, yxx cxn xndxrstxnd whxt x xm wrxtxng xvxn xf x rxplxcx xll thx vxwxls wxth xn "x" (t gts lttl hrdr f y dn't vn kn whr th vwls r)

Photography is a kind of virtual reality, and it helps if you can create the illusion of being in an interesting world.

Plants can't very well defend themselves by their behavior, so they resort to chemical warfare, and plants are saturated with toxins and irritants to deter creatures like us who want to eat them.

I would argue that nothing gives life more purpose than the realization that every moment of consciousness is a precious and fragile gift.

Babies are born with the instinct to speak, the way spiders are born with the instinct to spin webs. You don't need to train babies to speak; they just do. But reading is different.

(Wallace) Stevens turns to the idea of the weather precisely as the religious man turns to the idea of God.

The Jews are the scum of the earth, but they are also great masters in lying.

The important thing is that men should have a purpose in life. It should be something useful, something good.

The effect of great and inevitable misfortune is to elevate those souls which it does not deprive of all virtue.

True wisdom is to know the extent of what you don't know quite as well as you know what you do know.

Don't ever go with the flow. Be the flow.

My world. My rules. I would command everyone to do so many things! Be kind. Oh, I would command everyone to stop buying tabloids!

Pedagogically, we need definitions and borders. They help us get our heads around what we're talking about.

E-governance is the only way to move from good governance to proactive pro-people good governance (P2G2).

The Olympic Games are the quadrennial celebration of the springtime of humanity.