For 13 to be unlucky would require there to be some kind of cosmic intelligence that counts things that humans count and that also makes certain things happen on certain dates or in certain places according to whether the number 13 'is involved' or not (whatever 'is involved' might mean).

I think that animals aren't less intelligent than humans they're just of a different intelligence. We have five million smell-sensitive cells in our nose they have two hundred and fifty million - they can smell emotion. They can smell different types of emotion they just have another type of intelligence.

I'm an optimist in the sense that I believe humans are noble and honorable and some of them are really smart. I have a very optimistic view of individuals.

Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity it is the power to that enables us to empathize with humans whose experiences we have never shared.

Introspection and preserved writings give us far more insight into the ways of past humans than we have into the ways of past dinosaurs. For that reason I'm optimistic that we can eventually arrive at convincing explanations for these broadest patterns of human history.

Truth is I'll never know all there is to know about you just as you will never know all there is to know about me. Humans are by nature too complicated to be understood fully. So we can choose either to approach our fellow human beings with suspicion or to approach them with an open mind a dash of optimism and a great deal of candour.

We need a government alas because of the nature of humans.

There is in general good reason to suppose that in several respects the gods could all benefit from instruction by us human beings. We humans are - more humane.

Maybe humans are just the pet alligators that God flushed down the toilet.

A lot of people think Christianity is about always being perfect. It's actually the opposite of that. It's realizing that we're all humans and that's why God sent his Son to this earth - to save people.

Clearly some creative thinking is badly needed if humans are to have a future beyond Earth. Returning to the Moon may be worthy and attainable but it fails to capture the public's imagination. What does get people excited is the prospect of a mission to Mars.

Web 2.0 ideas have a chirpy cheerful rhetoric to them but I think they consistently express a profound pessimism about humans human nature and the human future.

The most important thing about global warming is this. Whether humans are responsible for the bulk of climate change is going to be left to the scientists but it's all of our responsibility to leave this planet in better shape for the future generations than we found it.

Something I've realized lately to my shock is that I am an optimist in that I think humans are almost infinitely capable of self-change and self-modification and that we really can build the future that we want if we're smart about it.

I love dogs. They live in the moment and don't care about anything except affection and food. They're loyal and happy. Humans are just too damn complicated.

Humans have a fraught relationship with beasts. They are our companions and our chattel our family members and our laborers our household pets and our household pests. We love them and cage them admire them and abuse them. And of course we cook and eat them.

If you want to look at the state of humans you should look at the state of animals first. People are choosing whether or not they can feed an animal and their family. And every shelter coast-to-coast is stuffed.