A wise man in China asked his gardener to plant a shrub. The gardener objected that it only flowered once in a hundred years. "In that case," said the wise man, "plant it immediately." [On the importance of fundamental research.]

Even in the world of molecules the civilising influence of modest restraints is a cause for rejoicing.

In education the appetite does indeed grow with eating. I have never known anyone to abandon study because they knew too much.

Human dignity is better served by embracing knowledge.

I knew, however, that it would cost ten times what I had available in order to build a molecular beam machine. I decided to follow a byway, rather than the highway. It is a procedure I have subsequently recommended to beginning scientists in this country, where research strategy is best modelled on that used by Wolfe at the Plains of Abraham.

Authority in science exists to be questioned, since heresy is the spring from which new ideas flow.

For science must breathe the oxygen of freedom.