Richard Dawkins

God exists, if only in the form of a meme with high survival value, or infective power, in the environment provided by human culture.

I'm a cultural Christian in the same way many of my friends call themselves cultural Jews or cultural Muslims.

Beauty arises out of human inspiration.

Bereavement is terrible, of course. And when somebody you love dies, it's a time for reflection, a time for memory, a time for regret.

I think the written word is probably the best medium of communication because you have time to reflect, you have time to choose your words, to get your sentences exactly right. Whereas when you're being interviewed, say, you have to talk on the fly, you have to improvise, you can change sentences around, and they're not exactly right.

I am very conscious that you can't condemn people of an earlier era by the standards of ours.

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.

I was confirmed at my prep school at the age of 13.

For the first half of geological time our ancestors were bacteria. Most creatures still are bacteria, and each one of our trillions of cells is a colony of bacteria.

I didn't know children were expected to have literary heroes, but I certainly had one, and I even identified with him at one time: Doctor Dolittle, whom I now half identify with the Charles Darwin of Beagle days.

Religion is about turning untested belief into unshakable truth through the power of institutions and the passage of time.

I'm afraid the Internet is filled with people using really very intemperate language.