The Phenomenon of Man stands square in the tradition of Naturphilosophie, a philosophical indoor pastime of German origin which does not seem even by accident (though there is a great deal of it) to have contributed anything of permanent value to the storehouse of human thought.

Heredity proposes and development disposes.

If politics is the art of the possible, research is surely the art of the soluble. Both are immensely practical-minded affairs.

To deride the hope of progress is the ultimate fatuity, the last word in poverty of spirit and meanness of mind.

I regret my disbelief in God.

It is a truism to say that a good experiment is precisely that which spares us the exertion of thinking: the better it is, the less we have to worry about its interpretation, about what it really means.

When asked to make the formal declaration that I did not intend to overthrow the Constitution of the United States, I was fool enough to reply that I had no such purpose, but that were I to do it by mistake I should be inexpressibly contrite.