I learned many years ago never to waste time trying to convince my colleagues.

An evening everyone agrees, is a lost evening.

A man's ethical behaviour should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.

Man has an intense desire for assured knowledge.

To get to know a country, you must have direct contact with the earth. It's futile to gaze at the world through a car window.

The ideals which have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth. Without the sense of kinship with men of like mind, without the occupation with the objective world, the eternally unattainable in the field of art and scientific endeavors, life would have seemed to the empty. The trite objects of human efforts — possessions, outward success, luxury—have always seemed to me contemptible.

What use are socks? They only produce holes.