Before I lost my voice, it was slurred, so only those close to me could understand, but with the computer voice, I found I could give popular lectures. I enjoy communicating science. It is important that the public understands basic science, if they are not to leave vital decisions to others.

No man means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.

I am a nuclear physicist by training and a deeply committed Christian. I don’t have any doubt in my own mind about God who created the entire universe. But I don’t adhere to passages that so and so was created 4,000 years before Christ, and things of that kind.

People seldom do what they believe in. They do what is convenient, then repent.

Words can be said in bitterness and anger, and often there seems to be an element of truth in the nastiness. And words don’t go away, they just echo around.

The common question that gets asked in business is, ‚why?‘ That’s a good question, but an equally valid question is, ‚why not?‘

I there represent that I sent notice of my method to Mr. Leibnitz before he sent notice of his method to me, and left him to make it appear that he had found his method before the date of my letter.

The men who have succeeded are men who have chosen one line and stuck to it.

I like to speak on matters which matter to human beings, and almost everything matters to human beings.

One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose.

There are goods so opposed that we cannot seize both, but, by too much prudence, may pass between them at too great a distance to reach either.

There’s no difference between one’s killing and making decisions that will send others to kill. It’s exactly the same thing, or even worse.

The duty of rhetoric is to deal with such matters as we deliberate upon without arts or systems to guide us, in the hearing of persons who cannot take in at a glance a complicated argument or follow a long chain of reasoning.

Our most tragic error may have been our inability to establish a rapport and a confidence with the press and television with the communication media. I don’t think the press has understood me.

Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful. But not knowing which to do is the worse kind of suffering.

I don’t want to express my opinion about actual politics, because if I do, I have to be responsible for my decision.

I act on impulse and I go with my instincts.

In order to govern, the question is not to follow out a more or less valid theory but to build with whatever materials are at hand. The inevitable must be accepted and turned to advantage.

A good name is rather to be chosen than riches.

Mind your speech a little lest you should mar your fortunes.

I want to be very clear: I will not sign on to any health plan that adds to our deficits over the next decade.

The god whom science recognizes must be a God of universal laws exclusively, a God who does a wholesale, not a retail business. He cannot accommodate his processes to the convenience of individuals.

If I’ve got a problem with one of my clients that needs to get solved, guess what I’m going to do? I’m going to call them up, and I’m going to say, ‚Hey, here’s what’s going on. This is the situation. This thing went sideways. I didn’t expect it. Now it’s going to take me some more time to get you what you need.‘ But I’m going to do that upfront.

He who speaks without modesty will find it difficult to make his words good.

To me, consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies. So it is something in which no one believes and to which no one objects.

I have an urge to communicate. I think I’m a change from what it would be like dating a normal guy who doesn’t talk too much.

Such a chimerical idea as telegraphing vocal sounds would indeed, to most minds, seem scarcely feasible enough to spend time in working over. I believe, however, that it is feasible and that I have got the cue to the solution of the problem.

Up until the 1920s, everyone thought the universe was essentially static and unchanging in time.

The first amazing fact about gravitation is that the ratio of inertial mass to gravitational mass is constant wherever we have checked it. The second amazing thing about gravitation is how weak it is.

People want to go out and travel around and meet cool people. I could just go live in Vermont, but is that what I really want?

I’m very aware and very conscious of the path I chose in life, and very aware of the path I didn’t choose.

We can’t just choose to tell some facts and not others because we don’t want to upset people. We have to tell it like it is.

I don’t like people going behind my back.

What can I know? What ought I to do? What can I hope?

I wonder how many decisions we make every day. I believe it’s probably hundreds. We decide whether or not to get out of bed, what we’ll eat, what we’ll do, what we’ll think about, what we’ll say… and on and on.

Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.

There are two ways of being happy: We must either diminish our wants or augment our means – either may do – the result is the same and it is for each man to decide for himself and to do that which happens to be easier.

Wisdom consists not so much in knowing what to do in the ultimate as knowing what to do next.

High office teaches decision making, not substance. It consumes intellectual capital; it does not create it. Most high officials leave office with the perceptions and insights with which they entered; they learn how to make decisions but not what decisions to make.

One reason I don’t want to play in England again is because we don’t have any personalities.

Back, you know, a few generations ago, people didn’t have a way to share information and express their opinions efficiently to a lot of people. But now they do. Right now, with social networks and other tools on the Internet, all of these 500 million people have a way to say what they’re thinking and have their voice be heard.

We often refuse to accept an idea merely because the tone of voice in which it has been expressed is unsympathetic to us.

When I am getting ready to reason with a man, I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself and what I am going to say and two-thirds about him and what he is going to say.

If it’s going to come out eventually, better have it come out immediately.

FaceTime helps me a lot. I feel like I’m at home even though I’m not.

It is a profound and necessary truth that the deep things in science are not found because they are useful; they were found because it was possible to find them.

If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour?

The capability of negotiating… is something that means you not only have to understand fully what you believe and what your national interests are but in order to be a really good negotiator, you have to try to figure out what the other person on the other side of the table has in mind.

It is the duty of the President to propose and it is the privilege of the Congress to dispose.

When you are trying to impress people with words, the more you say, the more common you appear, and the less in control. Even if you are saying something banal, it will seem original if you make it vague, open-ended, and sphinxlike.

People respond in accordance to how you relate to them. If you approach them on the basis of violence, that’s how they’ll react. But if you say, ‚We want peace, we want stability,‘ we can then do a lot of things that will contribute towards the progress of our society.

It’s been my experience in politics that you can try and plan it out: ‚I’m going to hit the three ball which will hit the eight ball.‘ You’ve just got to go run and try to do everything right. And then have a little luck.

I am a good listener. I think that came from my schooling.

Write in such a way as that you can be readily understood by both the young and the old, by men as well as women, even by children.

Never get married in college; it’s hard to get a start if a prospective employer finds you’ve already made one mistake.

There should be an honest attempt at the reconciliation of differences before resorting to combat.

Once I’ve decided to do something, I do usually try to carry it through to fruition.

Science is nothing but perception.

In my neighborhood, when you’ve got something to say to a guy, you look him in the eye and you say it to him.

Forethought we may have, undoubtedly, but not foresight.

In order to arrive at knowledge of the motions of birds in the air, it is first necessary to acquire knowledge of the winds, which we will prove by the motions of water in itself, and this knowledge will be a step enabling us to arrive at the knowledge of beings that fly between the air and the wind.