If the apple hit Newton’s nose, Newton’s nose hit the apple.

Man must have just enough faith in himself to have adventures, and just enough doubt of himself to enjoy them.

One elephant having a trunk was odd; but all elephants having trunks looked like a plot.

The simple sense of wonder at the shapes of things, and at their exuberant independence of our intellectual standards and our trivial definitions, is the basis of spirituality.

America is the only nation in the world that is founded on creed. That creed is set forth with dogmatic and even theological lucidity in the Declaration of Independence; perhaps the only piece of practical politics that is also theoretical politics and also great literature.

[There is] one distinctly human thing - the story. There can be as good science about a turnip as about a man. ... [Or philosophy, or theology] ...There can be, without any question at all, as good higher mathematics about a turnip as about a man. But I do not think, though I speak in a manner somewhat tentative, that there could be as good a novel written about a turnip as a man.

There are many ways to fall down, but there's only one way to stand up straight.