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

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.

Though we explore in a culturally-conditioned way, the reality we sketch is universal.

Science is an enterprise that can only flourish if it puts the truth ahead of nationality, ethnicity, class and color.

The respect for human rights, essential if we are to use technology wisely, is not something alien that must be grafted onto science. On the contrary, it is integral to science, as also to scholarship in general.

Reality is no less precious if it presents itself to someone else. All are discoverers, and if we disenfranchise any, all suffer.