* “While we do not know if any advanced extraterrestrial civilizations currently exist in our galaxy, we now have enough information to conclude that they almost certainly existed at some point in cosmic history.”–University of Rochester astrophysicist and author Adam Frank.
* “Technological progress without an equivalent progress in human institutions can doom us. The scientific revolution that led to the splitting of an atom requires a moral revolution as well.”–President Barack Obama.
* “We will no longer take funds from the EU and its member states in protest at their shameful deterrence policies and their intensification of efforts to push people back from European shores.”–Doctors Without Borders.
* “(Donald Trump) wants Americans to think about global affairs in terms of financial transactions that net America money rather than relationships that promote security, freedom and order.”–Peter Wehner, senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
* “Trump assumes that the Republican electorate is representative of the national electorate. It’s not.”–Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post.
* “Mr. Trump has found his place at last, and it is with the mob.”–Kevin Baker, essayist and author of the historical novel “The Big Crowd.”
* “He appeals to our fears, preys on our anxieties and exploits our ignorance. A worse candidate to sit in the Oval Office for the next four years cannot be imagined.”–Republican consultant and analyst Mac Stipanovich.
* “The problem is Trump. You can fire all the yes men want, but the campaign reflects on the candidate, and the candidate is hopelessly flawed.”–Republican strategist Mike Murphy.
* “Sure, there will be a roll call eventually. My plan until then is to help the senator do whatever he wants to do to further the political revolution.”–Jeff Weaver, campaign manager for Bernie Sanders.
* “We need common sense gun laws, common sense gender equality and religious pluralism and common sense privacy laws. But that takes common sense leaders, not ones who think the complexities of this age can be bombed away, walled away, willed away or insulted away.”–Thomas Friedman, New York Times.
* “Keeping military-grade combat weapons out of the hands of maniacs should not be a controversial idea.”–Eugene Robinson, Washington Post.
* “Today, some of our politicians and the people who back them seem to promote a culture of gun ownership that does not conform with what I learned in the military.”–Gen. Stanley McChrystal, former commander of U.S. and international forces in Afghanistan.
* “If there’s a glimmer of hope in the massacre of dozens of patrons at a gay nightclub in Orlando, it’s this. It has firmly established gay Americans as an ‘us,’ rather than a ‘them.'”–Frank Cerabino, Cox Newspapers.
* “The guilt of being alive is heavy.”–Patience Carter, a wounded survivor of the Orlando mass shooting.
* “For decades, the world has come to Orlando to have fun. And, now, when we needed it most, the world came to Orlando’s aid.”–Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer.
* “Sadly, it is religion, including our own, which targets, mostly verbally, and also often breeds contempt for gays, lesbians and transgender people. … Singling out people for victimization because of their religion, their sexual orientation, their nationality must be offensive to God’s ears.”–Bishop Robert Lynch of the Roman Catholic Diocese of St. Petersburg.
* “For the religious person, it is about God. For the terrorist, it is about himself. When Omar Mateen was in the midst of his rampage, he was posting on Facebook and calling a TV station. His audience was us, not the Divine.”–David Brooks, New York Times.
“Martyrdom, sir, is what these people like: It is the only way in which a man can become famous without ability.”–George Bernard Shaw in “The Devil’s Disciple.”
* “This is a much harder to kill mosquito than normal. This is the cockroach of mosquitoes. … It’s very difficult to control.”–Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in referencing the Zika virus.
* “In a year when politicians traffic in anti-immigrant rhetoric, there is also a Broadway musical reminding us that a broke, orphan immigrant from the West Indies built our financial system. A story that reminds us that since the beginning of the great unfinished symphony that is our American experiment, time and time again, immigrants get the job done.”–Lin-Manuel Miranda, creator of “Hamilton.”
* “The last thing you want to do as an elected official is raise people’s fees for anything, but I said, ‘We have a choice. You either want to live in Atlantis or you want to live in Miami Beach.'”–Miami Beach Mayor Phillip Levine, on why he’s leading a $400 million campaign to build pumping stations, raise roads and sea walls and upgrade the city’s stormwater system.
* “One of the factors for remaining in the Senate was to entertain the prospect of running statewide again.”–Sen. Tom Lee, R-Brandon.
* “The irony is the U.S. may be more of a threat to Cuba as a friend than as an enemy.”–David Guggenheim, president of Ocean Doctor, a joint rescue project with Cuban scientists, on the possibility of overdevelopment endangering coral reefs.
* “I can’t think of any other city that is quite like Tampa. It’s an easy place to live and very friendly.”–James Nozar, the new CEO of Jeff Vinik’s Strategic Property Partners.
* “We watched and waited, got our hopes up and dashed. But we’re on the verge of something very special here.”–Mayor Bob Buckhorn, on the announcement that construction will begin this summer on the first phase of the mixed-used (Tampa) Heights project.