“If there is any religion that could respond to the needs of modern science, it would be Buddhism.”

“The only thing that you absolutely have to know, is the location of the library.”

“The right to search for the truth implies also a duty; one must not conceal any part of what one has recognized to be the truth.”

“I'd rather be an optimist and a fool than a pessimist and right.”

“What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism.”

“Deux choses sont infinies : l’Univers et la bêtise humaine. Mais, en ce qui concerne l’Univers, je n’en ai pas encore acquis la certitude absolue.”

“My sense of god is my sense of wonder about the universe.”

“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.”

“The mind that opens to a new idea never comes back to its original size.”

“It is every man's obligation to put back into the world at least the equivalent of what he takes out of 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.”

“I believe in intuitions and inspirations...I sometimes FEEL that I am right. I do not KNOW that I am.”

“The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.”

“It would be possible to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure.”

“A true genius admits that he/she knows nothing.”