Nature is in austere mood, even terrifying, withal majestically beautiful.

But what sin is to the moralist and crime to the jurist so to the scientific man is ignorance.

Chemistry has been termed by the physicist as the messy part of physics, but that is no reason why the physicists should be permitted to make a mess of chemistry when they invade it.

[The human control of atomic energy could] virtually provide anyone who wanted it with a private sun of his own.

Heat energy of uniform temperature [is] the ultimate fate of all energy. The power of sunlight and coal, electric power, water power, winds and tides do the work of the world, and in the end all unite to hasten the merry molecular dance.

It is probable that all heavy matter possesses - latent and bound up with the structure of the atom - a similar quantity of energy to that possessed by radium. If it could be tapped and controlled what an agent it would be in changing the world's destiny! The man who put his hand on the lever by which a parsimonious nature regulates so jealously the output of this store of energy would possess a weapon by which he could destroy the earth if he chose.

Mankind has always drawn from outside sources of energy. This island was the first to harness coal and steam. But our present sources stand in the ratio of a million to one, compared with any previous sources. The release of atomic energy will change the whole structure of society.