Ifs and buts are the stuff of politics, Mr. Parkinson. As a scientist I am concerned with facts not with… — Fred Hoyle

Losing power, utterly and completely, is the most dreadful prospect that a politician can think of. It overshadows everything else.

“By and large, conventional religion, as many humans accept it, is illogical in its attempt to conceive of entities lying outside the Universe. Since the Universe comprises everything, it is evident that nothing can lie outside it. The idea of a ‘god’ creating the Universe is a mechanistic absurdity clearly derived from the making of machines by men. I take it that we are in agreement about all this.”

It’s only too easy to read your own state of mind into what other people say.