Man is slightly nearer to the atom than to the star. ... From his central position man can survey the grandest works of Nature with the astronomer, or the minutest works with the physicist. ... [K]nowledge of the stars leads through the atom; and important knowledge of the atom has been reached through the stars.

The pursuit of truth in science transcends national boundaries. It takes us beyond hatred and anger and fear. It is the best of us.

There is only one law of Nature-the second law of thermodynamics-which recognises a distinction between past and future more profound than the difference of plus and minus. It stands aloof from all the rest. ... It opens up a new province of knowledge, namely, the study of organisation; and it is in connection with organisation that a direction of time-flow and a distinction between doing and undoing appears for the first time.

Every body continues in its state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line, except insofar as it doesn't.

The mathematics is not there till we put it there.

In any attempt to bridge the domains of experience belonging to the spiritual and physical sides of nature, time occupies the key position.

If an army of monkeys were strumming on typewriters, they might write all the books in the British Museum.