One can study a caterpillar forever and never be able to predict a butterfly.

It is essential that anyone reading this book know at the outset that the author is apolitical. I was convinced in 1927 that humanity's most fundamental survival problems could never be solved by politics.

There is enough for everyone. People think that there isn't enough, so they get as much as they can, so many people don't have enough.

Specialization is in fact only a fancy form of slavery wherein the 'expert' is fooled into accepting a slavery by making him feel that he in turn is a socially and culturally preferred-ergo, highly secure-lifelong position.

When I'm working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only how to solve the problem.

Children are born true scientists. They spontaneously experiment and experience and reexperience again. They select, combine, and test, seeking to find order in their experiences - "which is the mostest? which is the leastest?" They smell, taste, bite, and touch-test for hardness, softness, springiness, roughness, smoothness, coldness, warmness: they heft, shake, punch, squeeze, push, crush, rub, and try to pull things apart.

Humans beings always do the most intelligent thing…after they’ve tried every stupid alternative and none of them have worked