Science is a part of culture. Indeed, it is the only truly global culture because protons and proteins are the same all over the world, and it's the one culture we can all share.

In future, children won't perceive the stars as mere twinkling points of light: they'll learn that each is a 'Sun', orbited by planets fully as interesting as those in our Solar system.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

It will not be humans who watch the sun's demise, six billion years from now. Any creatures that then exist will be as different from us as we are from bacteria or amoebae.

I think a few hundred years from now we'll start having the 'posthuman' era of different species.

It's better to read first rate science fiction than second rate science-it's a lot more fun, and no more likely to be wrong.

We need to broaden our sympathies both in space and time - and perceive ourselves as part of a long heritage, and stewards for an immense future.

I hope that by 2050 the entire solar system will have been explored and mapped by flotillas of tiny robotic craft.

I'm not myself religious but have no wish to insult or denigrate those who are.

Crucial to science education is hands-on involvement: showing, not just telling; real experiments and field trips and not just "virtual reality".

An insect is more complex than a star..and is a far greater challenge to understand.

We observe that one of the great attributes of discretion is that it can mask ignorance of all the most common and lowly varieties, and Walter Moody was nothing if not excessively discreet.

We take our shape it is true within and against that cage of reality bequeathed us at our birth and yet it is precisely through our dependence on this reality that we are most endlessly betrayed.

One of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his great surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn't do.

Creating a new theory is not like destroying an old barn and erecting a skyscraper in its place. It is rather like climbing a mountain and gaining new and wider views.

The love expressed between women is particular and powerful because we have had to love in order to live; love has been our survival.

Nature, through all her kingdoms, insures herself.

I try to have fun with the fans, try to have fun.

I didn't like the way it looked in white trousers, and I couldn't find anything to work underneath them.

Let men be wise by instinct if they can, but when this fails be wise by good advice.

Politicians have always coveted the liberties we hold.