“I speak to everyone in the same way, whether he is the garbage man or the president of the university.”

“I assert that the cosmic religious experience is the strongest and the noblest driving force behind scientific research.”

“There are two means of refuge from the misery of life - music and cats.”

“Be a loner. That gives you time to wonder, to search for the truth. Have holy curiosity. Make your life worth living.” 

“Failure is success in progress”

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

“be a voice not an echo”

“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.”

“It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.”

“Love is the answer”

“If something is in me which can be called religious, then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.”

“The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there’s no risk of accident for someone who’s dead.

“When you trip over love, it is easy to get up. But when you fall in love, it is impossible to stand again.”

“Racism is a disease of white people”

“I am not more gifted than anybody else. I am just more curious than the average person and I will not give up a problem until I have found the proper solution.”