The only way to deep happiness is to do something you love to the best of your ability

I have a friend who's an artist, and he sometimes takes a view which I don't agree with. He'll hold up a flower and say, "Look how beautiful it is," and I'll agree. But then he'll say, "I, as an artist, can see how beautiful a flower is. But you, as a scientist, take it all apart and it becomes dull." I think he's kind of nutty. [...] There are all kinds of interesting questions that come from a knowledge of science, which only adds to the excitement and mystery and awe of a flower. It only adds. I don't understand how it subtracts.

Don't pay attention to "authorities," think for yourself.

Philosophy of science is about as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds.

People often think I'm a faker, but I'm usually honest, in a certain way--in such a way that often nobody believes me!

The work I have done has, already, been adequately rewarded and recognized. Imagination reaches out repeatedly trying to achieve some higher level of understanding, until suddenly I find myself momentarily alone before one new corner of nature's pattern of beauty and true majesty revealed. That was my reward.

It is our responsibility to leave the people of the future a free hand.