The only important thing to realise about history is that it all took place in the last five minutes.

It is inconceivable that anything should be existing. It is not inconceivable that a lot of people should also be existing who are not interested in the fact that they exist. But it is certainly very odd.

In an autocracy, one person has his way; in an aristocracy, a few people have their way; in a democracy, no one has his way.

That society exists to frustrate the individual may be seen from its attitude to work. It is only morally acceptable if you do not want to do it. If you do want to, it becomes a personal pleasure.

The chief difficulty of modern theoretical physics resides not in the fact that it expresses itself almost exclusively in mathematical symbols, but in the psychological difficulty of supposing that complete nonsense can be seriously promulgated and transmitted by persons who have sufficient intelligence of some kind to perform operations in differential and integral calculus.

If you stand up to the human race you lose something called their 'goodwill'; if you kowtow to them you gain ... their permission to continue kowtowing.

Research is a way of taking calculated risks to bring about incalculable consequences.