Newton's apple and Cezanne's apple are discoveries more closely related than they seem.

Nobody before the Pythagorean had thought that mathematical relations held the secret of the universe. Twenty-five centuries later, Europe is still blessed and cursed with their heritage. To non-European civilizations, the idea that numbers are the key to both wisdom and power, seems never to have occurred.

[My father] loved me tenderly and shyly from a distance, and later on took a naive pride in seeing my name in print.

Einstein's space is no closer to reality than Van Gogh's sky.

In my youth I regarded the universe as an open book, printed in the language of equations, whereas now it appears to me as a text written in invisible ink, of which in our rare moments of grace we are able to decipher a small segment.

If power corrupts, the reverse is also true; persecution corrupts the victims though perhaps in subtler and more tragic ways.

Aggressiveness is not the main trouble with the human species, but rather an excess capacity for fanatical devotion.