I congratulate you both on a fine piece of work which I am sure will ultimately prove of importance. I am personally very much interested in your results... In the past I have tried a number of experiments... but without any success.

The great object is to find the theory of the matter [of X-rays] before anyone else, for nearly every professor in Europe is now on the warpath.

A good scientific theory should be explicable to a barmaid.

Gentlemen, we have run out of money. It is time to start thinking.

The more physics you have the less engineering you need.

When we have found how the nucleus of atoms is built up we shall have found the greatest secret of all — except life. We shall have found the basis of everything — of the earth we walk on, of the air we breathe, of the sunshine, of our physical body itself, of everything in the world, however great or however small — except life.

All of physics is either impossible or trivial. It is impossible until you understand it, and then it becomes trivial.