We want to be open-minded enough to accept radial new ideas when they occasionally come along, but we don't want to be so open-minded that our brains fall out.

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.

We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The difference is discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons.

Oh my dear, no matter who you are, where you are, or how you are, I can hear your song. I can feel your pain, and I really care.

There is no birth of consciousness without pain.

It is better to be an outspoken atheist than a hypocrite.

The night has given me dark eyes But I use them to look for light.

One impossible day, of an impossible month, of an impossible year.

Prayer gives us a pure heart and a pure heart can do much.

When I got my job on Parks, it was so dreamy, kind of unfathomable. I didn't think a job that excellent could exist for me.

Rome is the Great Beast of atheism and materialism, adoring nothing but itself. Israel is the Great Beast of religion. Neither one nor the other is likable. The Great Beast is always repulsive

I think it is really, really important that those of us who have deep faith lives don't feel that we could just substitute our own views for everybody else in society, regardless of their views.