The deeper our insight into the methods of nature . . . the more incredible the popular Christianity seems to us.

A man can fail many times, but he isn't a failure until he begins to blame somebody else.

It is the life of the crystal, the architect of the flake, the fire of the frost, the soul of the sunbeam. This crisp winter air is full of it.

Man is, and always has been, a maker of gods. It has been the most serious and significant occupation of his sojourn in the world.

Science is a capital or fund perpetually reinvested; it accumulates, rolls up, is carried forward by every new man. Every man of science has all the science before him to go upon, to set himself up in business with. What an enormous sum Darwin availed himself of and reinvested! Not so in literature; to every poet, to every artist, it is still the first day of creation, so far as the essentials of his task are concerned. Literature is not so much a fund to be reinvested as it is a crop to be ever new-grown.

To learn something new, take the path that you took yesterday.

Unfortunately, nuclear weapons have become identified with state power.