To be a fully functioning moral agent, one cannot passively accept moral principles handed down by fiat. Moral principles require moral reasoning.

Science is not a thing. It's a verb. It's a way of thinking about things. It's a way of looking for natural explanations for all phenomena.

The recent medical controversy over whether vaccinations cause autism reveals a habit of human cognition — thinking anecdotally comes naturally, whereas thinking scientifically does not.

Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons.

I’m a skeptic not because I do not want to believe, but because I want to know. How can we tell the difference between what we would like to be true and what is actually true? The answer is science.

Religious faith depends on a host of social, psychological and emotional factors that have little or nothing to do with probabilities, evidence and logic.

Humans are, by nature, pattern-seeking, storytelling animals, and we are quite adept at telling stories about patterns whether they exist or not.

But the power of science lies in open publication, which, with the rise of the Internet, is no longer constrained by the price of paper.

I’m a skeptic not because I do not want to believe, but because I want to know.

In comparison, Google is brilliant because it uses an algorithm that ranks Web pages by the number of links to them, with those links themselves valued by the number of links to their page of origin.

Either the soul survives death or it does not, and there is no scientific evidence that it does.

The key to holding a logical argument or debate is to allow oneself to understand the other person’s argument no matter how divergent their views may seem.

I played sports growing up in high school.

The real payoff is the writing itself, that a day when you have gotten your work done is a good day, that total dedication is the point.

It is very important that the president thematically shows where we're going in terms of the vision and an agenda.

Truth, like the burgeoning of a bulb under the soil, however deeply sown, will make its way to the light.

It's priceless what you learn when you actually do. It's like going to film school times eleven. The best education is effectively to be functioning in the occupation that you want to take on.

I have done so many things in my life," she said to the mirror. "Evil things, perhaps. But never unattentively, never wastefully...was I wrong?

It can be easy and comfortable on the set and you don't go anywhere, or it can be a stress machine and all of a sudden it's a hit.

We crave permission openly to become our secret selves.

The devil will let a preacher prepare a sermon if it will keep him from preparing himself.