[Newton wrote to Halley ... that he would not give Hooke any credit] That, alas, is vanity. You find it in so many scientists. You know, it has always hurt me to think that Galileo did not acknowledge the work of Kepler.

Scientific greatness is less a matter of intelligence than character; if the scientist refuses to compromise or accept incomplete answers and persists in grappling the most basic and difficult questions.

I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination.

I am doing just fine, considering that I have triumphantly survived Nazism and two wives.

Science is the century-old endeavor to bring together by means of systematic thought the perceptible phenomena of this world into as thorough-going an association as possible.

This subject brings me to that vilest offspring of the herd mind -- the odious militia. The man who enjoys marching in line and file to the strains of music falls below my contempt; he received his great brain by mistake -- the spinal cord would have been amply sufficient. This heroism at command, this senseless violence, this accursed bombast of patriotism -- how intensely I despise them! War is low and despicable, and I had rather be smitten to shreds than participate in such doings.

The world is not threatened by evil people, but by those who allow evil to take place.