The methods of theoretical physics should be applicable to all those branches of thought in which the essential features are expressible with numbers.

It was not until some weeks later that I realized there is no need to restrict oneself to 2 by 2 matrices. One could go on to 4 by 4 matrices, and the problem is then easily soluable. In retrospect, it seems strange that one can be so much held up over such an elementary point. The resulting wave equation for the electron turned out to be very successful. It led to correct values for the spin and the magnetic moment. This was quite unexpected. The work all followed from a study of pretty mathematics, without any thought being given to these physical properties of the electron.

There are always more people who prefer to speak than to listen.

A great deal of my work is just playing with equations and seeing what they give.

The research worker, in his efforts to express the fundamental laws of Nature in mathematical form, should strive mainly for mathematical beauty. He should take simplicity into consideration in a subordinate way to beauty ... It often happens that the requirements of simplicity and beauty are the same, but where they clash, the latter must take precedence.

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.

I should like to suggest to you that the cause of all the economic troubles is that we have an economic system which tries to maintain an equality of value between two things, which it would be better to recognise from the beginning as of unequal value.