178 Quotes by Daniel Dennett

Thanks to technology, what almost anybody can do has been multiplied a thousandfold, and our moral understanding about what we ought to do hasn’t kept pace.

Darwin’s idea of natural selection makes people uncomfortable because it reverses the direction of tradition.

If nobody cares, then it doesn’t matter what happens to flowers.

People are afraid of being more ignorant than their children – especially, apparantly, their daughters.

Imagination is cheap as long as you don’t have to worry about the details.

People ache to believe that we human beings are vastly different from all other species – and they are right! We are different. We are the only species that has an extra medium of design preservation and design communication: culture.

We have had plenty of atheist presidents; they just wouldn’t admit it.

You don’t get to advertise all the good that your religion does without first scrupulously subtracting all the harm it does and considering seriously the question of whether some other religion, or no religion at all, does better.

I don’t myself need that role for God. My view is that creation itself, the universe itself, is the most wonderful thing deserving awe and respect. And that satisfies me as my substitute for God.