The process of scientific discovery is, in effect, a continual flight from wonder.

Dostoevsky gives me more than any scientist, more than Gauss.

One of the strongest motives that lead men to art and science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness, from the fetters of one's own ever-shifting desires. A finely tempered nature longs to escape from the personal life into the world of objective perception and thought.

It is my inner conviction that the development of science seeks in the main to satisfy the longing for pure knowledge.

It has often been said, and certainly not without justification, that the man of science is a poor philosopher.

I regard class differences as contrary to justice and, in the last resort, based on force.

We can understand almost anything, but we can't understand how we understand.