Truly novel inventions emerge only in one's youth. Later one becomes ever more experienced, famous-and foolish.

I now see the necessity of a beginning.

Each of us visits this Earth involuntarily, and without an invitation. For me, it is enough to wonder at the secrets.

When the nazis came to power, I looked to the universities that prided themselves upon their intellectual freedom, and they failed me. I looked to the German press, which prided itself on the freedom of the press, and it failed me. Until at last the churches stood alone, and that for which I once had little regard earned my respect.

I know quite certainly that I myself have no special talent; curiosity, obsession and dogged endurance, combined with self-criticism, have brought me to my ideas.

Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either.

God gave me the stubbornness of a mule and a fairly keen scent.