One cannot understand... the universality of laws of nature, the relationship of things, without an understanding of mathematics. There is no other way to do it.

[B]eyond poverty, beyond the point that the material needs are reasonably satisfied, only from within is peace.

What I am going to tell you about is what we teach our physics students in the third or fourth year of graduate school... It is my task to convince you not to turn away because you don't understand it. You see my physics students don't understand it... That is because I don't understand it. Nobody does.

What is necessary for 'the very existence of science,' and what the characteristics of nature are, are not to be determined by pompous preconditions, they are determined always by the material with which we work, by nature herself. We look, and we see what we find, and we cannot say ahead of time successfully what it is going to look like. ... It is necessary for the very existence of science that minds exist which do not allow that nature must satisfy some preconceived conditions.

The electron is a theory we use; it is so useful in understanding the way nature works that we can almost call it real.

That is the logical tight-rope on which we have to walk if we wish to interpret nature.

I'm trying to find out NOT how Nature could be, but how Nature IS.