Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.

I'd rather be an optimist and a fool than a pessimist and right.

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

The mathematician knows some things, no doubt, but not those things one usually wants to get from him.

Through the release of atomic energy, our generation has brought into the world the most revolutionary force since prehistoric man's discovery of fire. This basic force of the universe cannot be fitted into the outmoded concept of narrow nationalisms.

If I could do it all again, I'd be a plumber.

An attempt at visualizing the Fourth Dimension: Take a point, stretch it into a line, curl it into a circle, twist it into a sphere, and punch through the sphere.