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.

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

... scientific research is compounded of ... empirical procedures, general speculative ideas, and mathematical or abstract reasoning.

Some of mankind's most terrible misdeeds have been committed under the spell of certain magic words or phrases.

Whether a man lives or dies in vain can be measured only by the way he faces his own problems, by the success or failure of the inner conflict within his own soul. And of this no one may know save God.

A conceptual scheme is never discarded merely because of a few stubborn facts with which it cannot be reconciled; a conceptual scheme is either modified or replaced by a better one, never abandoned with nothing left to take its place.

Behavior which appears superficially correct but is intrinsically corrupt always irritates those who see below the surface.