The richness of human life is that we have many lives, we live the events that do not happen (and some that cannot) as vividly as those that do, and if thereby we die a thousand deaths, that is the price we pay...

It's a sort of curious phenomenon that God is somehow not quite as nice as the devil; the devil doesn't punish you for behaving well, but God punishes you for behaving badly.

Every animal leaves traces of what it was; man alone leaves traces of what he created.

To me, being an intellectual doesn't mean knowing about intellectual issues; it means taking pleasure in them.

Science is a very human form of knowledge. We are always at the brink of the known; we always feel forward for what is to be hoped. Every judgment in science stands on the edge of error and is personal. Science is a tribute to what we can know although we are fallible.

The great poem and the deep theorem are new to every reader, and yet are his own experiences, because he himself recreates them.

We gain our ends only with the laws of nature; we control her only by understanding her laws.