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You can't come away with this cosmic perspective thinking that you are better than others and want to fight. That's why you'll never have astrophysicists leading nations into war.

Before a war military science seems a real science, like astronomy; but after a war it seems more like astrology.

I am one of those scientists who feels that it is no longer enough just to get on and do science. We have to devote a significant proportion of our time and resources to defending it from deliberate attack from organised ignorance.

That is the exploration that awaits you! Not mapping stars and studying nebula, but charting the unknown possibilities of existence.

This is the essence of all sciences - that you should know who you will be when the Day of Reckoning arrives.

Don't you see what's at stake here? The ultimate aim of all science to penetrate the unknown. Do you realize we know less about the earth we live on than about the stars and the galaxies of outer space? The greatest mystery is right here, right under our feet.

I don't know how you overcome the dearth of scientists in the government positions.

We are probably nearing the limit of all we can know about astronomy.

Good scientists will fight the system rather than learn to work with the system.

The scientists do not get enough help, enough encouragement, to change their field from time to time because the pressure is too high or is to perform something. And once you start in a new field, you are a nobody to start with, you see.