I've always wanted to make a film.

Common sense is completely worthless and irrelevant when trying to understand reality. This is probably why people who like to boast about their common sense tend to rail against the fact that they share a common ancestor with a monkey.

United States spends more on pet grooming than it does on fusion research.

Astronomy is what we have now instead of theology. The terrors are less, but the comforts are nil’.

Science is delighted frustration. It is about asking questions, to which the answers may be unavailable – now, or perhaps ever. It is about noticing regularities, asserting that these regularities must have natural explanations and searching for those explanations.

I deliberately borrow from Shakespeare; the most precious objects on Earth are not gems or jewels, but ink marks on paper. No single human brain could conceive of Hamlet, Principia Mathematica or Codex Leicester; they were created by and belong to the entire human race, and the library of wonders continues to grow.

Life, just like the stars, the planets and the galaxies, is just a temporary structure on the long road from order to disorder. But that doesn’t make us insignificant, because we are the Cosmos made conscious. Life is the means by which the universe understands itself. And for me, our true significance lies in our ability to understand and explore this beautiful universe.

It is undoubtedly true that Galileo didn’t intend to challenge the very theological foundations of the Church of Rome by observing the Moon through a telescope. But scientific discoveries, however innocuous they may seem at first sight, have a way of undermining those who don’t much care for facts. Reality catches up with everyone eventually. With.

The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than Man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as in poetry.

We’re both clever and stupid in equal measure.