For though we often need to be restored to the small, concrete, limited, and certain, we as often need to be reminded of the large, vague, unlimited, unknown.
Were I a cloud I'd gather My skirts up in the air, And fly well know whither, And rest I well know where.
The idea of an afterlife where you can be reunited with loved ones can be immensely consoling - though not to me.
Far from being demeaning to human spiritual values, scientific rationalism is the crowning glory of the human spirit.
I once wrote that anybody who believes the world is only 6,000 years old is either ignorant, stupid, insane or wicked.
I have a strong feeling that the subject of evolution is beautiful without the excuse of creationists needing to be bashed.
The theory of evolution by cumulative natural selection is the only theory we know of that is in principle capable of explaining the existence of organized complexity.
If ever there was a slamming of the door in the face of constructive investigation, it is the word miracle. To a medieval peasant, a radio would have seemed like a miracle.
If your plane is being hijacked by an armed man who, though prepared to take risks, presumably wants to go on living, there is room for bargaining.
It is a lamentable observation that because of the way our laws are skewed toward the plaintiff, London has become the libel capital of the world.
Mystics exult in mystery and want it to stay mysterious. Scientists exult in mystery for a different reason: It gives them something to do.
I do understand people when they say that you destroy the magic of childhood if you encourage too much skeptical questioning.
Notoriously, the United States is the most religious of the Western advanced nations. It's a bit mysterious why that is.
I have begun several projects which were never completed, not necessarily because they failed, but because I got interested in other things.
Either Jesus had a father, or he didn't. The question is a scientific one, and scientific evidence, if any were available, would be used to settle it.
I loved to write when I was a child. I wrote, but I always thought it was something that you did as a child, then you put away childish things.
Being Poet Laureate made me realize I was capable of a larger voice. There is a more public utterance I can make as a poet.
To practice your scales, so to speak, in order play the symphony, is what you have to do as a young poet.
I believe people may have a predisposition for artistic creativity. It doesn't mean they're going to make it.
Either blasphemy is a victimless crime or its victim is powerful enough to take care of himself without any help from you.
There was something built into the human brain by natural selection which was once useful, and which now manifests itself as religion.
