The universe is the way it is, whether we like it or not.

The lack of understanding of something is not evidence for God. It's evidence of a lack of understanding.

The purpose of education is not to validate ignorance but to overcome it.

I like to say that while antimatter may seem strange, it is strange in the sense that Belgians are strange. They are not really strange; it is just that one rarely meets them.

Without science, everything is a miracle.

As a scientist, I don't believe anything. Science shouldn't use the word belief. There are things more likely and less likely. Science can say nothing with absolute certainty.

[The writers of the holy books] did not even know the earth revolves around the sun. Why are we listening?

Forget Jesus. The stars died so that you could be here today.

Keeping religion immune from criticism is both unwarranted and dangerous.

Whatever the evolutionary basis of religion, the xenophobia it now generates is clearly maladaptive.

It is a shame when nonsense can substitute for fact with impunity.

I am happy to have all the books I need to read.

Always in your stomach and in your skin there was a sort of protest, a feeling that you had been cheated of something you had a right to.

My goal is not to resolve conflicts and tensions in the region through more war. My goal is to make sure that, you know, we are able to negotiate a deal that we can verify.

L'amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle (The love that moves the sun and the other stars)

"My father," she admitted, "was of Italian extraction. Unfortunately, not an affliction that can be cured." She paused. "Though he did die."

Dull sublunary lovers' love (Whose soul is sense) cannot admit Absence, because it doth remove Those things which elemented it.

My assistants generally do all the flowers and all of the decorative work. I concentrate on the figure.

A man who has to be punctually at a certain place at five o'clock has the whole afternoon ruined for him already.

Painting is an illusion, a piece of magic, so what you see is not what you see.

Some set more by such things as come from a distance, but I rec'lect mother always used to maintain that folks was meant to be doctored with the stuff that grew right about 'em.