Vengeful conquerors burn books as if the enemy's souls reside there, too.

Children and scientists share an outlook on life. If I do this, what will happen? is both the motto of the child at play and the defining refrain of the physical scientist. ... The unfamiliar and the strange - these are the domain of all children and scientists.

In the mind's eye, a fractal is a way of seeing infinity.

Writing comes into being to retain information across time and across space. Before writing, communication is evanescent and local; sounds carry a few yards and fade to oblivion. The evanescence of the spoken word went without saying. So fleeting was speech that the rare phenomenon of the echo, a sound heard once and then again, seemed a sort of magic.

Intuition was not just visual but also auditory and kinesthetic. Those who watched Feynman in moments of intense concentration came away with a strong, even disturbing sense of the physicality of the process, as though his brain did not stop with the grey matter but extended through every muscle in his body.

Vengeful conquerors burn books as if the enemy's souls reside there, too.

Ideas that require people to reorganize their picture of the world provoke hostility.