History followed different courses for different peoples because of differences among peoples' environments, not because of biological differences among peoples themselves

History as well as life itself is complicated -- neither life nor history is an enterprise for those who seek simplicity and consistency.

Forced to choose between limiting population or trying to increase food production, we chose the latter and ended up with starvation, warfare, and tyranny.

The adoption of agriculture, supposedly our most decisive step toward a better life, was in many ways a catastrophe from which we have never recovered.

AIDS and malaria and TB are national security issues. A worldwide program to get a start on dealing with these issues would cost about $25 billion... It's, what, a few months in Iraq.

We're uncomfortable about considering history as a science. It's classified as a social science, which is considered not quite scientific.

Biology is the science. Evolution is the concept that makes biology unique.

Technology has to be invented or adopted.

Rhino-mounted Bantu shock troops could have overthrown the Roman Empire. It never happened.

Human societies vary in lots of independent factors affecting their openness to innovation.

Why did human development proceed at such different rates on different continents for the last 13,000 years?

technology murdered childhood.

You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't. You get to decide what to worship.

The idea of recontextualizing images from different eras to express larger ideas about modern times was very exciting to me. That archival aesthetic is the foundation of my filmmaking style.

I wish i could change my mind as easily as I change socks But then I don't change socks so easily

A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct.

The rhythm of life is give and take. It is necessary to put things back into the system. To not do that is to foul your own nest - to use up all the natural resources greedily.

Football is a team game. So is life.

Just as surely as you can create a thought in your mind, you can create this day in the way you choose.

By nature man hates change; seldom will he quit his old home till it has actually fallen around his ears.

You are a success when you have made friends with your past, are focused on the present, and are optimistic about your future