Richard Dawkins

Much as we might wish to believe otherwise, universal love and the welfare of the species as a whole are concepts which simply do not make evolutionary sense.

Let us understand what our own selfish genes are up to, because we may then at least have the chance to upset their designs.

We have Africa in our blood and Africa has our bones.

Nature is not cruel, pitilessly, indifferent. This is one of the hardest lessons for humans to learn. We cannot admit that things might be neither good nor evil, neither cruel nor kind, but simply callous -- indifferent to all suffering, lacking all purpose.

Personally I rather look forward to a computer program winning the world [chess] championship. Humanity needs a lesson in humility.

We are survival machines - robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes.

I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world.

Human psychology has a near-universal tendency to let belief be colored by desire.

The essence of life is statistical improbability on a colossal scale.

They go by the name of genes, and we are their survival machines.

However many ways there may be of being alive, it is certain that there are vastly more ways of being dead.

[Natural selection] has no vision, no foresight, no sight at all. If it can be said to play the role of watchmaker in nature, it is the blind watchmaker.