It will not be we who reach Alpha Centauri, and the other nearby stars. It will be a species very like us - but with more of our strengths and fewer of our weaknesses.

Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.

It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.

The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.

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

The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.

The brain is like a muscle. When it is in use we feel very good. Understanding is joyous.

We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.

For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.

You have to know the past to understand the present.

Courage conquers all things: it even gives strength to the body.

If you don’t see the wonder in the most ordinary phenomenon, you’re not going to resonate very much.

None of the rest of my life figures here.

Stars will blossom in the darkness, Violets bloom beneath the snow.

I know how to tell a story to a thousand people. Sometimes I don't know how to tell a story to a piece of tape on a wall and a camera.

The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.

All judges had rather that ten innocent should suffer than that one guilty should escape.

I wasn't thinking of being the greatest. But I knew I had a chance.

We live not only in a world of thoughts, but also in a world of things. Words without experience are meaningless.