“To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science.”

“You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother.”

“If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.”

“The tendencies we have mentioned are something new for America. They arose when, under the influence of the two World Wars and the consequent concentration of all forces on a military goal, a predominantly military mentality developed, which with the almost sudden victory became even more accentuated. The characteristic feature of this mentality is that people place the importance of what Bertrand Russell so tellingly terms “naked power” far above all other factors which affect the relations between peoples. The Germans, misled by Bismarck’s successes in particular, underwent just such a transformation of their mentality—in consequence of which they were entirely ruined in less than a hundred years. I must frankly confess that the foreign policy of the United States since the termination of hostilities has reminded me, sometimes irresistibly, of the attitude of Germany under Kaiser Wilhelm II, and I know that, independent of me, this analogy has most painfully occurred to others as well. It is characteristic of the military mentality that non-human factors (atom bombs, strategic bases, weapons of all sorts, the possession of raw materials, etc.) are held essential, while the human being, his desires and thoughts—in short, the psychological factors—are considered as unimportant and secondary. Herein lies a certain resemblance to Marxism, at least insofar as its theoretical side alone is kept in view. The individual is degraded to a mere instrument; he becomes “human materiel.” The normal ends of human aspiration vanish with such a viewpoint. Instead, the military mentality raises “naked power” as a goal in itself—one of the strangest illusions to which men can succumb.”

“If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?”

“Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.”

“Ne pokušavam zamisliti nekog osobnog Boga; dovoljno je stajati sa strahopoštovanjem pred ustrojstvom svijeta i iskusiti ga onoliko koliko su to naša nedostatna osjetila u stanju.”

“Evil is the absence of God.”

“It is very difficult to explain this feeling to anyone who is entirely without it, especially as there is no anthropomorphic conception of God corresponding to it. The individual feels the nothingness of human desires and aims and the sublimity and marvelous order which reveal themselves both in Nature and in the world of though. He looks upon individual existence as a sort of prison and wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole.”

“I don't try to imagine a personal God; it suffices to stand in awe at the structure of the world, insofar as it allows our inadequate senses to appreciate it.”

“A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty - it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man.”

“The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.”

“Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it.”

“I have not eaten enough of the tree of knowledge, though in my profession I am obligated to feed on it regularly.”

“An empty stomach is not a good political adviser.”