The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them.

Certainly there are things worth believing. I believe in the brotherhood of man and the uniqueness of the individual. But if you ask me to prove what I believe, I can't. You know them to be true but you could spend a whole lifetime without being able to prove them. The mind can proceed only so far upon what it knows and can prove. There comes a point where the mind takes a leap—call it intuition or what you will—and comes out upon a higher plane of knowledge, but can never prove how it got there. All great discoveries have involved such a leap.

Political leaders or governments owe their position partly to force and partly to popular election. They cannot be regarded as representative of best elements, morally or intellectually, in their respective nations.

[O]nly if every individual strives for truth can humanity attain a happier future; the atavisms in each of us that stand in the way of a friendlier destiny can only thus be rendered ineffective.

Enough for me is the mystery of the eternity of life, and the inkling of the marvelous structure of reality. There is in this neither a will nor a goal, nor a must, but only sheer being.

Most people stop looking when they find the proverbial needle in the haystack. I would continue looking to see if there were other needles.

I have become an obstinate heretic in the eyes of my colleagues. Momentary success carries more power of conviction than reflections upon principles.