Lawrence M. Krauss

“The purpose of education is not to validate ignorance but to overcome it”

“If the universe doesn't care about us and if we're an accident in a remote corner of the universe, in some sense it makes us more precious. The meaning in our lives is provided by us; we provide our own meaning.”

“People are interested in science, but they don't always know they're interested in science, and so I try to find a way to get them interested.”

“For most people, the central questions of existence ultimately come down to transcendental ones: Why is there a universe at all? Why are we here?Whatever presumptions one might bring to the question "Why?," if we understand the "how" better, "why" will come into sharper focus.”

“The illusion of purpose and design is perhaps the most pervasive illusion about nature that science has to confront on a daily basis.”

“We should teach kids how to question. Now having said that, of course, to be a productive adult, there are certain skills that are required - reading, writing, and, in the old-fashioned days, we used to say arithmetic. Now we say mathematics.”

“Local order in parts of the universe is always possible at the expense of heat and disorder dissipated to the external environment. The human body is one example: we take in energy from our environment to build up complex molecules that help power our bodies, and, in doing so, we release heat to the world around us.”

“I was most eager to see how Trump would respond to the climate-change question.”

“Life has survived for more than three billion years because it is robust, and almost no mutations can easily outwit the defense mechanisms built up through eons of exposure to potential pathogens.”

“When it comes to the real operational issues that govern our understanding of physical reality, ontological definitions of classical philosophers are, in my opinion, sterile.”

“Cabinet members may disagree and even resign in protest, but, ultimately, they must obey the order of the Commander-in-Chief.”

“Teaching and writing, to me, is really just seduction; you go to where people are and you find something that they're interested in and you try and use that to convince them that they should be interested in what you have to say.”

“For a man with an impressive educational C.V., Ben Carson makes a lot of intellectual missteps.”

“Aside from communications satellites, space is devoid of industry.”

“Empirical explorations ultimately change our understanding of which questions are important and fruitful and which are not.”

“Donald Trump's candidacy has been a source of anxiety for many reasons, but one stands out: the ability of the president to launch nuclear weapons. When it comes to starting a nuclear war, the president has more freedom than he or she does in, say, ordering the use of torture.”

“To the extent that we even understand string theory, it may imply a massive number of possible different universes with different laws of physics in each universe, and there may be no way of distinguishing between them or saying why the laws of physics are the way they are. And if I can predict anything, then I haven't explained anything.”

“Whatever the evolutionary basis of religion, the xenophobia it now generates is clearly maladaptive.”

“To me, what philosophy does best is reflect on knowledge that's generated in other areas.”

“I have always felt that, aside from research that violates universal human mores, when it comes to technological applications, that which can be done will be done.”