[Children] are taught that it is a virtue to accept statements without adequate evidence, which leaves them a prey to quacks of every kind in later life, and makes it very difficult for them to accept the methods of thought which are successful in science.

I do not believe in the commercial possibility of induced radioactivity.

I have never yet met a healthy person who worried very much about his health, or a really good person who worried much about his own soul.

It was a reaction from the old idea of "protoplasm", a name which was a mere repository of ignorance.

Reality is the cage of those who lack imagination.

My practise as a scientist is atheistic. That is to say, when I set up an experiment I assume that no god, angel, or devil is going to interfere with its course; and this assumption has been justified by such success as I have achieved in my professional career. I should therefore be intellectually dishonest if I were not also atheistic in the affairs of the world. And I should be a coward if I did not state my theoretical views in public.

I will jump into the river to save two brothers or eight cousins.