“We are all creative beings, but we're brought up being told not to colour outside the lines – but why? It's OK to be different…. It's more than OK to be different, and we need to encourage that.”
— Rose McGowan
Actress & #MeToo activist who exposed Harvey Weinstein harassment

The quote archive

Science

A growing archive of 3,000+ moments, drawn from every interview.

I think of creativity very broadly, for me it's about solving problems. A lot of people put creativity into the narrow bucket of artistic expression; including film-making, creative writing, music and so on- but there are many who understand that if you look at science and engineering, there are many very interesting problems that require creativity and you see a great outpouring of new ideas.

— Ed Catmull

Co-Founder of Pixar & Pioneer in Computer Graphics

I learned to problem-solve and be self-sufficient at an early age, and that has influenced how I operate my lab. I try to make sure we generate as much of our research, data and activity in house as possible, so that we own what we produce.

— Mario Capecchi

Nobel Prize Winner for Gene Targeting in Mice

All ideas and questions might be very interesting, and children has to experience that their questions are equally valued as those coming from a grown up or a Nobel Prize winner.

— May-Britt Moser

Neuroscientist; Nobel Prize for discovering brain's positioning system cells

I don't think about myself as a woman in these contexts, I think about myself as a human. I feel like role model for all young people who wants to do science – not only girls.

— May-Britt Moser

Neuroscientist; Nobel Prize for discovering brain's positioning system cells

Within each of us is a deep, complex network of capillaries, veins and arteries which extend a distance equivalent to more than 3 times the circumference of the Earth, and because our body has lost its conditioning to nature, our hearts have to pump 20-30 times a minute more than if we regularly exposed our body to cold water.

— Wim Hof

Extreme athlete known for ice exposure & breathing technique methods

Going around the world thousands of times presents you with the depth, fragility, strength and richness of Earth; and gives you a sense of what 4.5 billion years actually means. I travelled with our Earth as it crossed the Solar System and watched as Winter and Summer swapped- it was like watching the world take one of 4.5 billion breaths.

— Chris Hadfield

Canadian Astronaut & International Space Station Commander

Seeing the Earth from space gives you an unfiltered understanding of it. Until you see the Earth from this vantage point, everything you knew about the planet was based on something that someone else had told you – based on their own filtered understanding and bias.

— Chris Hadfield

Canadian Astronaut & International Space Station Commander

Humans can be parasitized by actual brain worms, but also by idea pathogens that cause them to behave in profoundly maladaptive ways.

— Gad Saad

Evolutionary Psychologist & Author Known for Consumer Behavior Research

Dogs, chipmunks, squirrels, fish and dolphins do not have a meta-cognitive understanding of themselves. A dog can feel sad (we think) but cannot have a meta-cognitive understanding of the fact they feel sad and what to therefore do about.

— Angela Duckworth

Psychologist & Author of "Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance

There is no such thing as a body in the deeper reality, nor is there such thing as a universe – these are simply constructs for species-specific modalities of experience.

— Deepak Chopra

Wellness Entrepreneur & Author Promoting Mind-Body Medicine and Spirituality

The laws of cause and effect which govern our universe don't care about our beliefs – so we'd better find out what those laws are and try and align our beliefs to them to eliminate guesswork. The consequences if we don't? we'll get sick, we'll starve, our machines will break down.

— Steven Pinker

Cognitive Scientist & Psychologist Known for Research on Language and Human Nature

Truth is an aspiration which none of us can ever know that we have attained. Nobody has a pipeline to the truth; nobody is imbued with divine revelation. We seek truth through institutions like science, journalism, governance, justice systems and record keeping. These are the bodies that make us collectively more suited to attain the truth.

— Steven Pinker

Cognitive Scientist & Psychologist Known for Research on Language and Human Nature

The story of modernity is a story of scientific advance – but in reality, with every step forward, we're taking half a step backward in terms of making ourselves more fragile.

— Niall Ferguson

British historian and author specializing in financial and military history

Just think; our bodies are not just one single individual…. We're collections of 30-40 trillion cells that work collaboratively to create you or me. Life began 4 billion years ago on this planet as very simple prokaryotic life forms evolved into more complex individual eukaryotic life forms, multicellular life and then eventually tissues and organs.

— Peter Diamandis

Founder of X Prize Foundation & Singularity University

We're heading to a world where all our energy is derived from the sun and from renewables, a world where we will have a squanderable abundance of energy. There's 6,000 times more energy hitting the surface of the Earth than we consume as a species.

— Peter Diamandis

Founder of X Prize Foundation & Singularity University

If stem cells prove safe for use in the brain, you might use them to repair brain damage, but you might use them to increase or enhance brain function.

— John Harris