“I was made acutely aware how far superior an education that stresses independent action and personal responsibility is to one that relies on drill, external authority and ambition.”

“Children don’t heed the life experiences of their parents, and nations ignore history. Bad lessons always have to be learned anew. ”

“It is harder to crack prejudice than an atom.”

“the only escape from the miseries of life are music and cats...”

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

“A society's competitive advantage will come not from how well its schools teach the multiplication and periodic tables, but from how well they stimulate imagination and creativity.”

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

“The formulation of the problem is often more essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skill.”

“Growth comes through analogy; through seeing how things connect, rather than only seeing how they might be different.”

“Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love. How on earth can you explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love? Put your hand on a stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with that special girl for an hour and it seems like a minute. That's relativity.”

“It is easier to denature plutonium than to denature the evil spirit of man.”

“I have reached an age where if someone tells me to wear socks, I dont have to”

“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”

“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.”

“You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.”