That series of inventions by which man from age to age has remade his environment is a different kind of evolution -- not biological, but cultural evolution . . . "The Ascent of Man.

We receive experience from nature in a series of messages. From these messages we extract a content of information: that is, we decode the messages in some way. And from this code of information we then make a basic vocabulary of concepts and a basic grammar of laws, which jointly describe the inner organization that nature translates into the happenings and the appearances we meet.

One original thought is worth the sum total of human knowledge, because it advances the sum total of human knowledge by that one original thought.

Whether our work is art or science or the daily work of society, it is only the form in which we explore our experience which is different.

The world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation.

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

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.