Anyone who says he knows God’s intention is showing a lot of very human ego.

We think we know what we are doing. We have always thought so.

The purpose of life is to stay alive. Watch any animal in nature–all it tries to do is stay alive. It doesn’t care about beliefs or philosophy. Whenever any animal’s behavior puts it out of...

This, in essence, is the problem with the scientific view of reality. Science is a kind of glorified tailoring enterprise, a method for taking measurements that describe something – reality – that may not be...

Men under stress are fools, and fool themselves.

No one escapes from life alive.

There’s one problem with all psychological knowledge – nobody can apply it to themselves. People can be incredibly astute about the shortcomings of their friends, spouses, children. But they have no insight into themselves at...

A man can see by starlight, if he takes the time.

He prays because he knows he doesn’t control it. He’s at the mercy of it.

Human beings are so destructive. I sometimes think we’re a kind of plague, that will scrub the earth clean. We destroy things so well that I sometimes think, maybe that’s our function. Maybe every few...

What makes you think human beings are sentient and aware? There’s no evidence for it. Human beings never think for themselves, they find it too uncomfortable. For the most part, members of our species simply...

A third reason scientists are reluctant to examine paranormal phenomena is that they appear to contradict known physical laws. What is the point of studying the impossible? Only a fool would waste his time. The...

Everyone has a hidden agenda. Except me!

When you have a strongly held belief, don’t you think it’s important to express that belief accurately?

I believe my life has a value, and i don’t want to waste it thinking about clothing.I don’t want to think about what i will wear in the morning. Truly, can you imagine anything more...

Do you know what we call opinion in the absence of evidence? We call it prejudice.

I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be...

They didn’t understand what they were doing.I’m afraid that will be on the tombstone of the human race.

In reality, time doesn’t pass; we pass. Time itself is invariant. It just is. Therefore, past and future aren’t separate locations, the way New York and Paris are separate locations. And since the past isn’t...

Extrapolating from the statistical growth of the legal profession, by the year 2035 every single person in the United States will be a lawyer, including newborn infants.

The risk is too great. A man cannot place too much faith in any one thing, neither a woman, nor a horse, nor a weapon, nor any single thing.

Like all trial attorneys, he knew the importance of not dressing too well.

Each person bears a fear which is special to him. One man fears a close space and another man fears drowning; each laughs at the other and calls him stupid. Thus fear is only a...

But complex animals had obtained their adaptive flexibility at some cost–they had traded one dependency for another. It was no longer necessary to change their bodies to adapt, because now their adaptation was behavior, socially...

Kids didn’t have huge backpacks when I was their age. We didn’t have backpacks at all. Now it seemed all the kids had them. You saw little second-graders bent over like sherpas, dragging themselves through...

His management philosophy, tempered in his rain-dancing days, was always to give the project to whoever had the most to gain from success–or the most to lose from failure.

The nasty little apes that call themselves human beings can do nothing except run and hide.

Life is wonderful. It’s a gift to be alive, to see the sun and breathe the air. And there isn’t really anything else.

I don’t want to think about what I will wear in the morning. Truly, can you imagine anything more boring than fashion? Professional sports, perhaps. Grown men swatting little balls, while the rest of the...

I believe the experiences reported in this book are reproducible by anyone who wishes to try. I went to Africa. You can go to Africa. You may have trouble arranging the time or the money,...

For our own species, evolution occurs mostly through our behavior. We innovate new behavior to adapt.

…we haven’t had any accidents for months now…Everything on that island is perfectly fine.

False fears are a plague, a modern plague!

You can’t get decent Mexican food in DC.

Nobody dares to solve the problems-because the solution might contradict your philosophy, and for most people clinging to beliefs is more important than succeeding in the world.

Books aren’t written, they’re rewritten. Including your own. It is one of the hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn’t quite done it…

This may be why Einstein once said; “Humanity has every reason to place the proclaimers of high moral standards and values above the discoverers of objective truth. What humanity owes to personalities like Buddha, Moses...

I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2....

[..]Although personally, I think cyberspace means the end of our species.”Yes? Why is that?”Because it means the end of innovation,” Malcolm said. “This idea that the whole world is wired together is mass death. Every...

Having wallowed in a delightful orgy of anti-French sentiment, having deplored and applauded the villains themselves, having relished the foibles of bankers, railwaymen, diplomats, and police, the public was now ready to see its faith...

Sometimes I think everyone’s an attorney.

… we have created a man with not one brain but two. … This new brain is intended to control the biological brain. … The patient’s biological brain is the peripheral terminal — the only...

You think man can destroy the planet? What intoxicating vanity. Let me tell you about our planet. Earth is four-and-a-half-billion-years-old. There’s been life on it for nearly that long, 3.8 billion years. Bacteria first; later...

There are lots of trips out there. It’s even possible to become a conference groupie, going from one seminar to another and being a Beautiful Evolved Human Being until you start making the people around...

All your life, other people will try to take your accomplishments away from you. Don’t you take it away from yourself.

Geniuses never pay attention.

Absence of proof is not proof of absence

Praise not the day until evening has come, a woman until she is burnt, a sword until it is tried, a maiden until she is married, ice until it has been crossed, beer until it...

In any case, this was a deep human prejudice. Human beings to find a central command in any organization. States had governments. Corporations had CEOs. Schools had principals. Armies had generals. Human beings tended to...

Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and...