The evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in 1976 coined the term ‘meme’ for a unit of cultural imitation.

Futurology always ends up telling you more about your own time than about the future.

Society works not because we have consciously invented it, but because it is an ancient product of our evolved predispositions. It is literally in our nature.

The interaction of genetic and external influences makes my behaviour unpredictable, but not undetermined. In the gap between those words lies freedom.

It is not a zero sum game. The simple idea of the gains from trade lies at the heart of the modern and the ancient economy, not the power of capital. There is nothing else to it.

Intelligence will become more and more collective; innovation and order will become more and more bottom-up.

Prosperity has brought complications. Our lives are busier, faster, more stressful. They're nostalgic for a simpler, slower time.

A true scientist is bored by knowledge; it is the assault on ignorance that motivates him - the mysteries that previous discoveries have revealed.

The genome is a book that wrote itself, continually adding, deleting and amending over four billion years.

At some point, human intelligence became collective and cumulative in a way that happened to no other animal.

Our minds have been built by selfish genes, but they have been built to be social, trustworthy and cooperative.

She read and read and read, but she was stuffing herself with the letters on the page like an unhappy child stuffing itself with chocolate. They didn’t taste bad, but she was still unhappy.

If I were to be honest, I'm probably fifty percent bagel. Okay, fine, sixty percent.

You’ll never have the chance to work this stuff out unless you give yourself the chance.

Poetry is the lifeblood of rebellion, revolution, and the raising of consciousness.

Certainty is usually a sign of pathology.

[I'm] very fortunate and blessed person who still has a lot of living to do.

Anybody who is stupid enough often stumbles on an effect that could never be thought up by the most brilliant. I suspect that there is a thing which you might call the genius of stupidity.

There is no such thing as a crime of passion, only a crime of possession.

I'm a big advocate of music being an honest representation of who you are as a person and your perspective.

Many people think you shouldn't stop kids from being kids, and I agree, but no one wants the worst case scenario on their hands. Better safe than sorry I say.