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

Astronomy is not the apex of science or of invention. But it is a test of the cast of temperament and mind that underlies a culture.

The child is not a prisoner of its inheritance; it holds its inheritance as a new creation which its future actions will unfold.

No science is immune to the infection of politics and the corruption of power. ... The time has come to consider how we might bring about a separation, as complete as possible, between Science and Government in all countries. I call this the disestablishment of science, in the same sense in which the churches have been disestablished and have become independent of the state.

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

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.

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.