I would expunge the word "aptitude" from our vocabulary, because if you're interested in something, that's all that matters. You'll spend more time doing it, that than anything else, and possibly more time doing it than anybody else. And that's all that matters, because in the end, if you love what you do, you'll be your best at it compared to anything else you might have chosen as a career.

I'd rather enjoy the money, and then be buried, offering my body back to the flora and fauna of which I have dined my whole life.

You don't discard Newton. Newton becomes the limiting case of how you would apply Einstein's theories.

Imagination alone is not enough, because the reality of nature is far more wondrous than anything we can imagine

To the scientist, the universality of physical laws makes the cosmos a marvelously simple place. By comparison, human nature-the psychologist's domain-is infinitely more daunting.

One of the biggest problems with the world today is that we have large groups of people who will accept whatever they hear on the grapevine, just because it suits their worldview—not because it is actually true or because they have evidence to support it. The really striking thing is that it would not take much effort to establish validity in most of these cases… but people prefer reassurance to research.

Whether or not you can become great at something, you can always become better.