One must always do what one really cannot.

An independant reality in the ordinary physical sense can neither be ascribed to the phenomenon nor to the agencies of observation.

Rutherford is a man you can rely on; he comes regularly and enquires how things are going and talks about the smallest details - Rutherford is such an outstanding man and really interested in the work of all the people around him.

Physics is the belief that a simple and consistent description of nature is possible.

There is no hope for any speculation that does not look absurd at first glance.

The present state of atomic theory is characterized by the fact that we not only believe the existence of atoms to be proved beyond a doubt, but also we even believe that we have an intimate knowledge of the constituents of the individual atoms.

A physicist is just an atom's way of looking at itself.