Theoretical Physicist Quotes

“Every kind of peaceful cooperation among men is primarily based on mutual trust and only secondarily on institutions such as courts of justice and police.”

“Academic chairs are many, but wise and noble teachers are few; lecture-rooms are numerous and large, but the number of young people who genuinely thirst after truth and justice is small”

“Intuitive powers played a central role in my scientific work, not wild speculation, yet a valued resource when no other approach was available.”

“You cannot prevent and prepare for war at the same time.”

“Time is an illusion.”

“In my experience, the best creative work is never done when one is unhappy.”

“Organized people are just too lazy to go looking for what they want.”

“The environment is everything that isn't me.”

“Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted.”

“While I am a convinced pacifist there are circumstances in which I believe the use of force is appropriate - namely, in the face of an enemy unconditionally bent on destroying me and my people.”

“Innovation is everyones responsibility, not just R&Ds.”

“I came to America because of the great, great freedom which I heard existed in this country. I made a mistake in selecting America as a land of freedom, a mistake I cannot repair in the balance of my lifetime.”

“I always have a high regard for the individual and have an insuperable distaste for violence and clubmanship. All these motives made me into a passionate pacifist and anti-militarist. I am against any nationalism, even in the guise of mere patriotism. Privileges based on position and property have always seemed to me unjust and pernicious, as did any exaggerated personality cult.”

“Hell! there ain't no rules around here! We are tryin' to accomplish somep'n!”

“The state was made for man, not man for state.”

“To punish me for my contempt for authority, fate made me an authority myself.”

“I have always eaten animal flesh with a somewhat guilty conscience.”

“A country cannot simultaneously prepare and prevent war. I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. The distinctions separating the social classes are false; in the last analysis they rest on force.”

“My relationship to the Jewish people has become my strongest human bond, ever since I became fully aware of our precarious situation among the nations of the world.”

“Politics is far more complicated than physics.”

“Stand still. The trees ahead and bush beside you are not lost.”

“Modern education is competitive, nationalistic and separative. It has trained the child to regard material values as of major importance, to believe that his nation is also of major importance and superior to other nations and peoples. The general level of world information is high but usually biased, influenced by national prejudices, serving to make us citizens of our nation but not of the world.”

“There is no scientific antidote, only education. You've got to change the way people think. I am not interested in disarmament talks between nations . . . What I want to do is to disarm the mind. After that, everything else will automatically follow. The ultimate weapon for such mental disarmament is international education.”

“Imagination encircles the world.”

“It is our American habit if we find the foundations of our educational structure unsatisfactory to add another story or wing. We find it easier to add a new study or course or kind of school than to recognize existing conditions so as to meet the need. strangled the holy curious of inquiry. It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty.”