The human baby, the human being, is a mosaic of animal and angel.

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 . . .

Science is a tribute to what we can know, although we are fallible.

The most remarkable discovery made by scientists is science itself. The discovery must be compared in importance with the invention of cave-painting and of writing. Like these earlier human creations, science is an attempt to control our surroundings by entering into them and understanding them from inside. And like them, science has surely made a critical step in human development which cannot be reversed. We cannot conceive a future society without science.

There is no absolute knowledge. And those who claim it, whether they are scientists or dogmatists, open the door to tragedy.

The basis for poetry and scientific discovery is the ability to comprehend the unlike in the like and the like in the unlike.

Every judgment in science stands on the edge of error, and is personal.