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.

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.]

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

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

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

Young people ask me if this country is serious about science. They aren't thinking about the passport that they will hold, but the country that they must rely on for support and encouragement.

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