The Bible tells us to be like God, and then on page after page it describes God as a mass murderer. This may be the single most important key to the political behavior of Western Civilization.

Robert A. Wilson

There has got to be a God; the world could not have become so fucked up by chance alone.

Edward Abbey, “Vox Clamantis In Deserto”

There are two things which cannot be attacked in front: ignorance and narrow-mindedness. They can only be shaken by the simple development of the contrary qualities. They will not bear discussion.

Lord Acton

In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry, and is generally considered to have been a bad move.

Douglas Adams

How can I believe in God when just last week I got my tongue caught in the roller of an electric typewriter?

Woody Allen, “Without Feathers”

What's a cult? It just means not enough people to make a minority.

Robert Altman

This whole Christian theology thing is that god came down to experience life through his son. Well, how's he experiencing life if he doesn't get laid? Give me a break. And why would he not get laid, as he created the apparatus in the first place?

Tori Amos

Truth emerges more readily from error than from confusion.

Francis Bacon

A schoolmaster should have an atmosphere of awe, and walk wonderingly, as if he was amazed at being himself.

Walter Bagehot

Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.

Stephen Hawking

If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans. We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet.

Stephen Hawking

Even if it turns out that time travel is impossible, it is important that we understand why it is impossible.

Stephen Hawking

If I had a time machine, I'd visit Marilyn Monroe in her prime or drop in on Galileo as he turned his telescope to the heavens.

Stephen Hawking

Science is increasingly answering questions that used to be the province of religion.

Stephen Hawking

Lawyer: “Now sir, I'm sure you are an intelligent and honest man—”
Witness: “Thank you. If I weren't under oath, I'd return the compliment.”

unknown

If the Lord Almighty had consulted me before embarking on creation thus, I should have recommended something simpler.

Alfonso X, King of Castile

Count what is countable, measure what is measurable, and what is not measurable, make it measurable.

Galileo Galilei

The language of experiment is more authoritative than any reasoning: facts can destroy our ratiocination — not vice versa.

Alessandro Volta

The habit of an opinion often leads to the complete conviction of its truth, and makes us incapable of accepting the proofs against it.

Jöns Jakob Berzelius

From a long view of the history of mankind… there can be little doubt that the most significant event of the 19th century will be judged as Maxwell’s discovery of the laws of electrodynamics.

Richard Feynman

The special theory of relativity owes its origins to Maxwell’s equations of the electromagnetic field.

Albert Einstein

It was necessary at this point to find a new term to define this new property of matter manifested by the elements of uranium and thorium. I proposed the word radioactivity.

Marie Curie

The Curie laboratory… was a cross between a stable and a potato-cellar, and, if I had not seen the worktable with the chemical apparatus, I would have thought it a practical joke.

Wilhelm Ostwald

Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are a part of the mystery that we are trying to solve.

Max Planck

All science is either physics or stamp collecting.

Ernest Rutherford