science

"My view is that if your philosophy is not unsettled daily then you are blind to all the universe has to offer."

"I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand them."

"John Muir, Earth — planet, Universe[Muir's home address, as inscribed on the inside front cover of his first field journal]"

"Art is unquestionably one of the purest and highest elements in human happiness. It trains the mind through the eye, and the eye through the mind. As the sun colors flowers, so does art color life."

"It is very expensive to give bad medical care to poor people in a rich country."

"We are built to be effective animals, not happy ones."

"A kiss without a moustache, they said then, is like an egg without salt; I will add to it: and it is like Good without Evil."

"Whenever we proceed from the known into the unknown we may hope to understand, but we may have to learn at the same time a new meaning of the word 'understanding."

"I don't want to believe. I want to know."

"...but I still think that to the unprejudiced, the fossil record of plants is in favor of special creation."

"And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it."

"All we know of the Missing Link is that he is missing - and he won't be missed either."

"If it weren't for greed, intolerance, hate, passion and murder, you would have no works of art, no great buildings, no medical science, no Mozart, no Van Gough, no Muppets and no Louis Armstrong."

"We can believe in the future and work to achieve it and preserve it, or we can whirl blindly on, behaving as if one day there will be no children to inherit our legacy. The choice is ours; the earth is in balance."

"إن الدين الذي يريد أن يستبدل التفكير الحر بأسرار صوفية ، وأن يستبدل الحقيقة العلمية بعقائد جامدة ، والفاعلية الإجتماعية بطقوس ، لابد أن يصطدم بالعلم. والدين الصحيح - على عكس هذا - فهو متسق مع العلم. وكثير من العلماء الكبار يسود عندهم الإعتراف بنوع من الوحدانية. وفوق هذا يستطيع العلم أن يساعدالدين في محاربة المعتقدات الخرافية ، فإذا إنفصلا يرتكس الدين في التخلف ويتجه العلم نخو الإلحاد."

"Names and attributes must be accommodated to the essence of things, and not the essence to the names, since things come first and names afterwards."

"The whole value of solitude depends upon oneself; it may be a sanctuary or a prison, a haven of repose or a place of punishment, a heaven or a hell, as we ourselves make it."

"I want to put on the table, not why 85% of the members of the National Academy of Sciences reject God, I want to know why 15% of the National Academy don’t."

"Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light; I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night."

"I believe the simplest explanation is, there is no God. No one created the universe and no one directs our fate. This leads me to a profound realization that there probably is no heaven and no afterlife either. We have this one life to appreciate the grand design of the universe and for that, I am extremely grateful."