[John Wheeler] rejuvenated general relativity; he made it an experimental subject and took it away from the mathematicians

From my childhood it has been my conviction that men would reach the planets in my lifetime . . . this conviction . . . rests on two beliefs, one scientific and one political: (1) there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our present-day science. And we shall only find out what they are if we go out and look for them. (2) it is in the long run essential to the growth of any new and high civilization that small groups of people can escape from their neighbors and from their governments, to go and live as they please in the wilderness.

The ground of science was littered with the corpses of dead unified theories.

The public knows that human beings are fallible. Only people blinded by ideology fall into the trap of believing in their own infallibility.

For me, science is just a bunch of tools - it's like playing the violin.

Younger people have so many opportunities. I don't see any pessimism among them.

Science and religion are two windows that people look through, trying to understand the big universe outside, trying to understand why we are here. The two windows give different views, but they look out at the same universe. Both views are one-sided, neither is complete. Both leave out essential features of the real world. And both are worthy of respect.