[Attributing the origin of life to spontaneous generation.] However improbable we regard this event, it will almost certainly happen at least once.... The time... is of the order of two billion years.... Given so much time, the "impossible" becomes possible, the possible probable, and the probable virtually certain. One only has to wait: time itself performs the miracles.

We are living in a world in which all wars are wars of defense.

As you lecture, you keep watching the faces, and information keeps coming back to you all the time.

We are the products of editing, rather than of authorship.

The trouble with most of the things that people want is that they get them.

The great questions are those an intelligent child asks and, getting no answers, stops asking.

I have lived much of my life among molecules. They are good company. I tell my students to try to know molecules, so well that when they have some question involving molecules, they can ask themselves, What would I do if I were that molecule? I tell them, Try to feel like a molecule; and if you work hard, who knows? Some day you may get to feel like a big molecule!