“This is the most enormous extension of vision of which life is capable: the projection of itself into other lives. This is the lonely, magnificent power of humanity. It is . . . the supreme epitome of the reaching out.”

“Of all human inventions the organization, a machine constructed of people performing interdependent functions, is the most powerful. Because it is so powerful, the organization is more dangerous than any other human invention, including nuclear fission (itself the product of an organized scientific project).”

“The magnificence of such objects hardly pertains to the human. They live only in a world of icons and there they participate in rituals which transmute life itself to a series of grand gestures, as moving as they are absurd.”

“The great thing about life-the most magnificent thing about being these sentient human beings-is that we have been given the power of choice.”

“The sheer weight [of human population] threatens that magnificent kaleidoscope of other living things which also depend on... natural sysytems.”

“Once in a while, we get the briefest of glimpses of the magnificent beauty that resides in this universe. Life which happens within incomprehensible tumult, occasionally transforms itself into a clear vision of pure ecstasy in a still transcendent moment.”