I shall never believe that God plays dice with the world.
Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing.
The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one.
Memory is deceptive because it is colored by today’s events.
The environment is everything that isn’t me.
We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.
It stands to the everlasting credit of science that by acting on the human mind it has overcome man’s insecurity before himself and before nature.
People love chopping wood. In this activity one immediately sees results.
I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it.
The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.
The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.
Never lose a holy curiosity.
Too many of us look upon Americans as dollar chasers. This is a cruel libel, even if it is reiterated thoughtlessly by the Americans themselves.
The process of scientific discovery is, in effect, a continual flight from wonder.
You ask me if I keep a notebook to record my great ideas. I’ve only ever had one.
The man of science is a poor philosopher.
I am not only a pacifist but a militant pacifist. I am willing to fight for peace. Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war.
He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice.
Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.
Concern for man and his fate must always form the chief interest of all technical endeavors. Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations.