There's no system foolproof enough to defeat a sufficiently great fool.

[Chemistry] laboratory work was my first challenge. ... I still carry the scars of my first discovery-that test-tubes are fragile.

Society's emissions of carbon dioxide may or may not turn out to have something significant to do with global warming-the jury is still out.

Life improves slowly and goes wrong fast, and only catastrophe is clearly visible.

It is often claimed that knowledge multiplies so rapidly that nobody can follow it. I believe this is incorrect. At least in science it is not true. The main purpose of science is simplicity and as we understand more things, everything is becoming simpler. This, of course, goes contrary to what everyone accepts.

The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy; the best weapon of a democracy is openness.

Had we not pursued the hydrogen bomb, there is a very real threat that we would now all be speaking Russian. I have no regrets.