Nations in their great ages have not been great in art or science, but in art and science.

Certainty ends inquiry.

The world today is made, it is powered by science; and for any man to abdicate an interest in science is to walk with open eyes towards slavery.

Power is the by-product of understanding.

By the worldly standards of public life, all scholars in their work are of course oddly virtuous. They do not make wild claims, they do not cheat, they do not try to persuade at any cost, they appeal neither to prejudice nor to authority . . .

Dream or nightmare, we have to live our experience as it is, and we have to live it awake. We live in a world which is penetrated through and through by science and which is both whole and real. We cannot turn it into a game simple by taking sides.

We have to understand that the world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation. The hand is more important than the eye ... The hand is the cutting edge of the mind.