The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease.
自然界中每年的痛苦总量超出了所有体面的思考。在我写这句话的一分钟内，成千上万的动物被活生生地吃掉，许多其他动物在逃命，因恐惧而呜咽，其他动物则被寄生虫从内部慢慢吞噬，成千上万的动物因饥饿、口渴和疾病而死亡。
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born.
The selfish gene theory is not a theory about selfishness in the everyday sense. It is a theory about the evolution of behavior.
自私基因理论并不是关于日常意义上的自私的理论。它是关于行为进化的理论。
The universe is not queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.
宇宙并不比我们想象的更奇怪，而是比我们能够想象的更奇怪。
Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.
信仰是伟大的逃避，是逃避思考和评估证据需要的伟大借口。信仰是在缺乏证据的情况下，甚至可能是因为缺乏证据而相信。
The essence of life is statistical improbability on a colossal scale.
生命的本质是统计上的不可能性，规模巨大。
We are survival machines – robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes.
我们是生存机器——盲目编程的机器人车辆，旨在保存被称为基因的自私分子。
The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation.
自然界中每年的痛苦总量超出了所有体面的思考范围。
科学是现实的诗歌。
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
我们观察到的宇宙恰恰具有我们应期望的属性，如果从根本上说，没有设计，没有目的，没有邪恶，没有善良，只有盲目的、无情的冷漠。