Skepticism is not a position that you stake out ahead of time and stick to no matter what.

Science is not a thing. It's a verb. It's a way of thinking about things. It's a way of looking for natural explanations for all phenomena.

The recent medical controversy over whether vaccinations cause autism reveals a habit of human cognition — thinking anecdotally comes naturally, whereas thinking scientifically does not.

Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons.

I’m a skeptic not because I do not want to believe, but because I want to know. How can we tell the difference between what we would like to be true and what is actually true? The answer is science.

Religious faith depends on a host of social, psychological and emotional factors that have little or nothing to do with probabilities, evidence and logic.

Humans are, by nature, pattern-seeking, storytelling animals, and we are quite adept at telling stories about patterns whether they exist or not.

But the power of science lies in open publication, which, with the rise of the Internet, is no longer constrained by the price of paper.

I’m a skeptic not because I do not want to believe, but because I want to know.

In comparison, Google is brilliant because it uses an algorithm that ranks Web pages by the number of links to them, with those links themselves valued by the number of links to their page of origin.

Either the soul survives death or it does not, and there is no scientific evidence that it does.

Hang in there. It is astonishing how short a time it can take for very wonderful things to happen.

God knows whatever comes your way, in any given circumstance.

You alone are enough.

The Afghans did not have sophisticated weapons like the Soviets did, but with their faith they defeated a superpower.

Every failure teaches a man something, if he will learn; and you are too sensible a man not to learn from this failure.

The real geniuses know where their writing has to be good and where they can get away with some mediocrity.

The game is meant to be fun.

In Eastern lands they talk in flowers, And they tell in a garland their loves and cares; Each blossom that blooms in their garden bowers, On its leaves a mystic language bears.

Not everyone can say, 'I'm going to write a classic today.' If that was the case, we'd all be doing it.

[Mitt] Romney did not have and never did have a large group of supporters that were personally attached, connected, and loyal to him.