The valuable attributes of research men are conscious ignorance and active curiosity.

Somebody is always reflectively monkeying with some of the parts of an infinite universe - monkeying as distinct from aping.

The valuable attributes of research men are conscious ignorance and active curiosity.

In the advance of civilization, it is new knowledge which paves the way, and the pavement is eternal.

Research is appreciation.

I happen to be a kind of monkey. I have a monkeylike curiosity that makes me want to feel, smell, and taste things which arouse my curiosity, then to take them apart. It was born in me. Not everybody is like that, but a scientific researchist should be. Any fool can show me an experiment is useless. I want a man who will try it and get something out of it.

Necessity is not the mother of invention. Knowledge and experiment are its parents. It sometimes happens that successful search is made for unknown materials to fill well-recognized and predetermined requirements. It more often happens that the acquirement of knowledge of the previously unknown properties of a material suggests its trial for some new use. These facts strongly indicate the value of knowledge of properties of materials and indicate a way for research.