
Preface To The 2011 edition, p. xi
The Expanding Circle: Ethics, Evolution, and Moral Progress (1981)
"Biological Potentiality vs. Biological Determinism", p. 251
Ever Since Darwin (1977)
Preface To The 2011 edition, p. xi
The Expanding Circle: Ethics, Evolution, and Moral Progress (1981)
as quoted by Jessica Bland in [16 January 2012, Martin Rees looks back to understand why 'scientific citizens' will be important in the future, In Verba, The Royal Society, http://blogs.royalsociety.org/in-verba/2012/01/16/martin-rees-looks-back-to-understand-why-‘scientific-citizens’-will-be-important-in-the-future/]
The Book of Universes: Exploring the Limits of the Cosmos (2011), ch. 2, p. 22
Source: Vatican Observatory examines theological implications of finding alien life https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/17651/vatican-observatory-examines-theological-implications-of-finding-alien-life (10 November 2009)
Source: Emotional amoral egoism (2008), p.65
Vogue 1989 September 1
Attributed variants:
"When it comes to having a central nervous system, and the ability to feel pain, hunger, and thirst, a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy"
"A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy. They’re all animals." — Washingtonian magazine, 1986 August 1
Source: 1980s, That Benediction is Where You Are (1985), p. 63
Context: Are we wasting our lives? By that word “wasting” we mean dissipating our energy in various ways, dissipating it in specialized professions. Are we wasting our whole existence, our life? If you are rich, you may say, “Yes, I have accumulated a lot of money, it has been a great pleasure.” Or if you have a certain talent, that talent is a danger to a religious life. Talent is a gift, a faculty, an aptitude in a particular direction, which is specialization. Specialization is a fragmentary process. So you must ask yourself whether you are wasting your life. You may be rich, you may have all kinds of faculties, you may be a specialist, a great scientist or a businessman, but at the end of your life has all that been a waste? All the travail, all the sorrow, all the tremendous anxiety, insecurity, the foolish illusions that man has collected, all his gods, all his saints and so on — have all that been a waste? You may have power, position, but at the end of it — what? Please, this is a serious question that you must ask yourself. Another cannot answer this question for you.