I hate crowds and making speeches. I hate facing cameras and having to answer to a crossfire of questions. Why popular fancy should seize upon me, a scientist, dealing in abstract things and happy if left alone, is a manifestation of mass psychology that is beyond me.
James Clerk Maxwell's [work is the] most profound and the most fruitful.
Any society which does not insist upon respect for all life must necessarily decay.
What counts can't always be counted; what can be counted doesn't always count.
If I were not a Jew I would be a Quaker.
My life is a simple thing that would interest no one. It is a known fact that I was born, and that is all that is necessary.