All that we have seen is something of a vast and intricate and lovely universe. There is no particular theological conclusion that comes out of an exercise such as the one we have just gone through. What is more, when we understand something of the astronomical dynamics, the evolution of worlds, we recognize that worlds are born and worlds die, they have lifetimes just as humans do, and therefore that there is a great deal of suffering and death in the cosmos if there is a great deal of life.

The many sorrows of our recent history suggest that we humans have a learning disability.

In human history there a precious few whose memory we revere because they knowingly sacrificed themselves for others. For each of them, there are multitudes who did nothing.

We might have thought that the horrors of World War II and the Holocaust were enough to innoculate us against the toxins there revealed and unleashed. But our resistance quickly fades. A new generation gladly abandons its critical and skeptical faculties.

The secrets of evolution are death and time—the deaths of enormous numbers of lifeforms that were imperfectly adapted to the environment; and time for a long succession of small mutations.

We will die and we fear death. This fear is worldwide and transcultural. It probably has significant survival value. Those who wish to postpone or avoid death can improve the world, reduce its perils, make children who will live after us, and create great works by which they will be remembered.

When I wake up I go through an abbreviated process of mourning all over again. Plainly, there’s something within me that’s ready to believe in life after death. And it’s not the least bit interested in whether there’s any sober evidence for it.

Life is profligate, blind at this level unconcerned with notions of justice. It can afford to waste multitudes.

Individual asexual organisms die by mistake - when the run out of something, or when they experience a lethal accident. Sexual organisms are designed to die, preprogrammed to do so. Death serves as a poignant reminder of our limitations and frailties - and of the bond with our ancestors who, in a way, died that we might live.