The central opposition between magic and science is the opposition between power and knowledge.

One aim of physical sciences had been to give an exact picture the material world. One achievement of physics in the twentieth century has been to prove that that aim is unattainable.

Knowledge is not a loose leaf notebook of facts.

Dissent is the mark of freedom.

Has there ever been a society which has died of dissent? Several have died of conformity in our lifetime.

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 . . .

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