We think we have solved the mystery of creation. Maybe we should patent the universe and charge everyone royalties for their existence.

I am a nuclear physicist by training and a deeply committed Christian. I don’t have any doubt in my own mind about God who created the entire universe. But I don’t adhere to passages that so and so was created 4,000 years before Christ, and things of that kind.

I believe nothing happens by mistake. You know, the universe has a divine plan. That sounds dramatic.

You are the universe, you aren’t in the universe.

Historically, the stuff of the universe goes on becoming concentrated into ever more organized forms of matter.

It is clear to everyone that astronomy at all events compels the soul to look upwards, and draws it from the things of this world to the other.

The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.

To be conscious means not simply to be, but to be reported, known, to have awareness of one’s being added to that being.

I’m an atheist, and the concept of god for me is all part of what I call ‚the last illusion.‘ The last illusion is someone knows what is going on. Nearly everyone has that illusion somewhere, and it manifests not only in the terms of the idea that there is a god but that it knows what’s going on but that the planets know what’s going on.

I don’t believe in an outside agent that creates the world, then walks away. But I feel very strongly there is an intelligence at work in every flower, in every blade of grass, in every cell of my body. And it is that intelligence that, I wouldn’t say created the universe. It is creating the universe. It’s an ongoing process.

Each life makes its own immitation of immortality.

Without gambling, I would not exist.

In the usual progress of things, the necessities of a nation in every stage of its existence will be found at least equal to its resources.

Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness, and dies by chance.

Enlightenment is always there. Small enlightenment will bring great enlightenment. If you breathe in and are aware that you are alive – that you can touch the miracle of being alive – then that is a kind of enlightenment.

That deep emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God.

The finite is annihilated in the presence of the infinite, and becomes a pure nothing. So our spirit before God, so our justice before divine justice.

I do not believe in God; his existence has been disproved by Science. But in the concentration camp, I learned to believe in men.

What was God doing before the divine creation?

The unnatural, that too is natural.

The ultimate connection is when you are connected to the creator of the universe.

We can come to look upon the deaths of our enemies with as much regret as we feel for those of our friends, namely, when we miss their existence as witnesses to our success.

We are all born for love. It is the principle of existence, and its only end.

This is the truth: as from a fire aflame thousands of sparks come forth, even so from the Creator an infinity of beings have life and to him return again.

Odd how the creative power at once brings the whole universe to order.

The gigantic tension before the shooting of an arrow, and the total relaxation seconds later, is my way of connecting to the universe.

By staying focused on what I intend to create, by believing that the universe is all-providing, and by knowing that I’m worthy of the unlimited beneficence of the Source of being, I just keep attracting prosperity to me.

There is no conflict between the ideal of religion and the ideal of science, but science is opposed to theological dogmas because science is founded on fact. To me, the universe is simply a great machine which never came into being and never will end. The human being is no exception to the natural order. Man, like the universe, is a machine.

From the dust of the earth, from the common elementary fund, the Creator has made Homo sapiens. From the same material he has made every other creature, however noxious and insignificant to us. They are earth-born companions and our fellow mortals.

Science predicts that many different kinds of universe will be spontaneously created out of nothing. It is a matter of chance which we are in.

Certain defects are necessary for the existence of individuality.

I do not know whether there are gods, but there ought to be.

Everything in Nature contains all the powers of Nature. Everything is made of one hidden stuff.

Our existence is beyond our explanation, whether we believe in God or we have religion or we’re atheist. Our existence is beyond our understanding. No one has an answer.

The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.

I’m in awe of the universe, but I don’t necessarily believe there’s an intelligence or agent behind it. I do have a passion for the visual in religious rituals, though, even though they may be completely empty and bereft of substance. The incense is powerful and provocative, whether Buddhist or Catholic.

Real life? Well, I just hope mine isn’t investigated. They might find that I don’t really exist – that I’m just a hologram.

Let man live at a distance from God, and the universe remains neutral or hostile to him. But let man believe in God, and immediately all around him the elements, even the irksome, of the inevitable organize themselves into a friendly whole, ordered to the ultimate success of life.

Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe.

Every legend, moreover, contains its residuum of truth, and the root function of language is to control the universe by describing it.

The universe is wider than our views of it.

It is natural to die as to be born.

If you understand the universe, you control it, in a way.

I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don’t let anybody tell you different.

Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars – mere globs of gas atoms. I, too, can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more?

I like mathematics because it is not human and has nothing particular to do with this planet or with the whole accidental universe – because, like Spinoza’s God, it won’t love us in return.

Man is an exception, whatever else he is. If he is not the image of God, then he is a disease of the dust. If it is not true that a divine being fell, then we can only say that one of the animals went entirely off its head.

For me, the real earth is that chosen part of the universe, still almost universally dispersed and in course of gradual segregation, but which is little by little taking on body and form in Christ.

When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the area of man’s concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.

It is incomprehensible that God should exist, and it is incomprehensible that he should not exist.

Religion is part of the human make-up. It’s also part of our cultural and intellectual history. Religion was our first attempt at literature, the texts, our first attempt at cosmology, making sense of where we are in the universe, our first attempt at health care, believing in faith healing, our first attempt at philosophy.

I tell you in truth: all men are Prophets or else God does not exist.

For me life is continuously being hungry. The meaning of life is not simply to exist, to survive, but to move ahead, to go up, to achieve, to conquer.

Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another.

The study and knowledge of the universe would somehow be lame and defective were no practical results to follow.

In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.

Helped are those who create anything at all, for they shall relive the thrill of their own conception and realize a partnership in the creation of the Universe that keeps them responsible and cheerful.

Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe?

Most sets of values would give rise to universes that, although they might be very beautiful, would contain no one able to wonder at that beauty.

The human race may be the only intelligent beings in the galaxy.

Some day science may have the existence of mankind in power, and the human race can commit suicide by blowing up the world.