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

It is curious to reflect, for example, upon the remarkable legend of the Philosopher's Stone, one of the oldest and most universal beliefs, the origin of which, however far back we penetrate into the records of the past, we do not probably trace its real source.

I believe that there have been civilisations in the past that were familiar with atomic energy, and that by misusing it they were totally destroyed.

Some of the beliefs and legends bequethed to us by Antquity are so universally and firmly established that we have become accustomed to consider them as being almost as ancient as humanity itself. Nevertheless we are tempted to inquire how far the fact that some of these beliefs and legends have so many features in common is due to chance, and wether the similarity between them may not point to the exestience of an ancient, totally unknown and unsuspected civilization of which all other traces have disappeared.

[This] may prove to be the beginning of some embracing generalization, which will throw light, not only on radioactive processes, but on elements in general and the Periodic Law.... Chemical homogeneity is no longer a guarantee that any supposed element is not a mixture of several of different atomic weights, or that any atomic weight is not merely a mean number.

The energy available for each individual man is his income, and the philosophy which can teach him to be content with penury should be capable of teaching him also the uses of wealth.

The fact remains that, if the supply of energy failed, modern civilization would come to an end as abruptly as does the music of an organ deprived of wind.