I venture to define science as a series of interconnected concepts and conceptual schemes arising from experiment and observation and fruitful of further experiments and observations. The test of a scientific theory is, I suggest, its fruitfulness.

Therefore, a grotesque account of a period some thousands of years ago is taken seriously though it be built by piling special assumptions on special assumptions, ad hoc hypothesis [invented for a purpose] on ad hoc hypothesis, and tearing apart the fabric of science whenever it appears convenient. The result is a fantasia which is neither history nor science.

Every vital organization owes its birth and life to an exciting and daring idea.

Each honest calling, each walk of life, has its own elite, its own aristocracy based on excellence.

Education is what is left after all that has been learnt is forgotten.

There is only one proved method of assisting the advancement of pure science-that of picking men of genius, backing them heavily, and leaving them to direct themselves.

Science is a dynamic undertaking directed to lowering the degree of the empiricism involved in solving problems; or, if you prefer, science is a process of fabricating a web of interconnected concepts and conceptual schemes arising from experiments and observations and fruitful of further experiments and observations.