A theory with mathematical beauty is more likely to be correct than an ugly one that fits some experimental data.

The aim of science is to make difficult things understandable in a simpler way; the aim of poetry is to state simple things in an incomprehensible way. The two are incompatible.

It seems that if one is working from the point of view of getting beauty in one's equations, and if one has really a sound insight, one is on a sure line of progress.

If we are honest - and scientists have to be - we must admit that religion is a jumble of false assertions, with no basis in reality.

Well, in the first place, it leads to great anxiety as to whether it's going to be correct or not ... I expect that's the dominating feeling. It gets to be rather a fever... At age 60, when asked about his feelings on discovering the Dirac equation.

Hopes are always accompanied by fears, and, in scientific research, the fears are liable to become dominant.

In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it is the exact opposite.