Science

Your odds of success in things you attempt go up radically if you are methodical and diligent.

I have discovered that it is just as easy or just as hard to climb a tall mountain as it is to climb a small mountain—so why not go for it!

It's not deadly to ask stupid questions. What's deadly is to not ask the right question at the right time.

You are smarter when you're in the company of smarter people than you. Fifty percent of my friends have to be from walks of life that are not directly related to my walk of life, and at least fifty percent of my friends are smarter than I am.

History tells us that modern science evolved from the visual arts. Observational science started with the visual arts. Galileo's first publication was not on a scientific matter. He wrote a monograph on perspective, on shadow and light.

He was committed to lifelong learning. He settled for nothing less than excellence. He not only sought truth — Galileo believed more than anything else that he would find it.

Not experiencing any failure in life is rarely a sign of perfection. Rather, it's a sign that your goals are not bold enough.

That's the power of truth and learning and excellence — the search for what it is that ignites the human spirit, overcoming the unexpected and discovering the unknown. That's what life is all about.

Your job is to witness. To witness, to understand, to comprehend, and to celebrate. To celebrate with your lives.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.