One strength of the communist system of the East is that it has some of the character of a religion and inspires the emotions of a religion.
Politics is for the present, but an equation is for eternity.
The road to perdition has ever been accompanied by lip service to an ideal.
It was the experience of mystery – even if mixed with fear – that engendered religion.
I have just got a new theory of eternity.
One may say the eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility.
To the Master’s honor all must turn, each in its track, without a sound, forever tracing Newton’s ground.
The grand aim of all science is to cover the greatest number of empirical facts by logical deduction from the smallest number of hypotheses or axioms.
There could be no fairer destiny for any physical theory than that it should point the way to a more comprehensive theory in which it lives on as a limiting case.
When the number of factors coming into play in a phenomenological complex is too large scientific method in most cases fails. One need only think of the weather, in which case the prediction even for a few days ahead is impossible.
Concepts that have proven useful in ordering things easily achieve such authority over us that we forget their earthly origins and accept them as unalterable givens.
It is our American habit if we find the foundations of our educational structure unsatisfactory to add another story or wing.
It is better to believe than to disbelieve; in doing so you bring everything to the realm of possibility.
If one tries to navigate unknown waters one runs the risk of shipwreck.
I asked myself childish questions and proceeded to answer them.
The health of society thus depends quite as much on the independence of the individuals composing it as on their close political cohesion.
A conviction akin to religious feeling of the rationality or intelligibility of the world lies behind all scientific work of a high order.
As long as there are sovereign nations possessing great power, war is inevitable.
There is nothing divine about morality, it is a purely human affair.
It is easier to denature plutonium than to denature the evil spirit of man.