Man like every other animal is by nature indolent. If nothing spurs him on, then he will hardly think, and will behave from habit like an automaton.

Brief is this existence, as a visit in a strange house. The path to be pursued is poorly lit by a flickering consciousness.

The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.

I am by heritage a Jew, by citizenship a Swiss, and by makeup a human being, and only a human being, without any special attachment to any state or national entity whatsoever.

The Constitution only guarantees the American people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself. A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy?

When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge. (Reading this makes me wonder how much sooner man could have walked on the moon... had we listened to a child's fantasies. It is truly a pity that so many lose their gift of imagination to the steady hum of the status quo.)

Curiosity is a delicate little plant that, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom.