The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not ‚Eureka!‘ but ‚That’s funny…‘

Knowing that we are primates, I think, is a fascinating discovery, and a very interesting and rather cheering one.

Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe.

Women tend to be more intuitive, or to admit to being intuitive, and maybe the hard science approach isn’t so attractive. The way that science is taught is very cold. I would never have become a scientist if I had been taught like that.

Facts which at first seem improbable will, even on scant explanation, drop the cloak which has hidden them and stand forth in naked and simple beauty.

If you keep proving stuff that others have done, getting confidence, increasing the complexities of your solutions – for the fun of it – then one day you’ll turn around and discover that nobody actually did that one!

The history of science shows that theories are perishable. With every new truth that is revealed we get a better understanding of Nature and our conceptions and views are modified.

I have definitely been curious and involved in the process; even as a young actor. I was always looking at where the camera was, what story it was telling. And as my experience grew, I wanted to know even more.

It takes a wise man to discover a wise man.

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 we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits?

I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

In England, an inventor is regarded almost as a crazy man, and in too many instances, invention ends in disappointment and poverty. In America, an inventor is honoured, help is forthcoming, and the exercise of ingenuity, the application of science to the work of man, is there the shortest road to wealth.

Science, as everyone knows, is responsible, moderate, unsentimental, and otherwise good.

The true delight is in the finding out rather than in the knowing.

I have discovered that my interest in my dear pupil, Mabel, has ripened into a far deeper feeling than that of mere friendship. In fact, I know that I have learned to love her very sincerely.

I believe there are no questions that science can’t answer about a physical universe.

I got my first computer in the 6th grade or so. As soon as I got it, I was interested in finding out how it worked and how the programs worked and then figuring out how to write programs at just deeper and deeper levels within the system.

When trying to remember my share in the glow of the eternal present, in the smile of God, I return to my childhood, too, for that is where the most significant discoveries turn up.

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

What I have is a malevolent curiosity. That’s what drives my need to write and what probably leads me to look at things a little askew. I do tend to take a different perspective from most people.

There are trees of a thousand sorts, and all have their several fruits; and I feel the most unhappy man in the world not to know them, for I am well assured that they are all valuable. I bring home specimens of them, and also of the land.

The American doctor, in my opinion, possesses a combination of conservatism and that other quality which has put the United States in the forefront in almost every department of science – that is, an eagerness to know what it is really all about in order that he may not be the one left behind if there is something to it.

There are in fact two things, science and opinion; the former begets knowledge, the latter ignorance.

The Indians on board said that thence to Cuba was a voyage in their canoes of a day and a half; these being small dug-outs without a sail. Such are their canoes. I departed thence for Cuba, for by the signs the Indians made of its greatness, and of its gold and pearls, I thought that it must be Cipango.

Name the greatest of all inventors. Accident.

Personally, I would be delighted if there were a life after death, especially if it permitted me to continue to learn about this world and others, if it gave me a chance to discover how history turns out.

We should not teach children the sciences; but give them a taste for them.

What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.

Cosmology is a rapidly advancing field.

Never lose a holy curiosity.

Children are remarkable for their intelligence and ardor, for their curiosity, their intolerance of shams, the clarity and ruthlessness of their vision.

It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it.

Leisure and curiosity might soon make great advances in useful knowledge, were they not diverted by minute emulation and laborious trifles.

The alchemists in their search for gold discovered many other things of greater value.

Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power; religion gives man wisdom which is control.

Man lives for science as well as bread.

I believe the universe is governed by the laws of science. The laws may have been decreed by God, but God does not intervene to break the laws.

As scientists, we step on the shoulders of science, building on the work that has come before us – aiming to inspire a new generation of young scientists to continue once we are gone.

Science predicts that many different kinds of universe will be spontaneously created out of nothing. It is a matter of chance which we are in.

Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge.

Many admire, few know.

Science is nothing but perception.

I grew up with the biologists. I know how they think.

You always admire what you really don’t understand.

Research is creating new knowledge.

Men love to wonder, and that is the seed of science.

The ideas associated with the problems of the development of science, as far as I can see by looking around me, are not of the kind that everyone appreciates.

I have a big following among the biogeeks of this world. Nobody ever puts them in books.

Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.

The moment you have in your heart this extraordinary thing called love and feel the depth, the delight, the ecstasy of it, you will discover that for you the world is transformed.

One of the very important characteristics of a student is to question. Let the students ask questions.

There is no logical way to the discovery of these elemental laws. There is only the way of intuition, which is helped by a feeling for the order lying behind the appearance.

English is necessary as at present original works of science are in English. I believe that in two decades times original works of science will start coming out in our languages. Then we can move over like the Japanese.

First love is only a little foolishness and a lot of curiosity.

Success is a science; if you have the conditions, you get the result.

Freedom is absolutely necessary for the progress in science and the liberal arts.

The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.

I’m someone who likes plowing new ground, then walking away from it. I get bored easily. For me, the big thrill comes with the discovering.

What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child.

Both the man of science and the man of action live always at the edge of mystery, surrounded by it.