Be wiser than other people if you can; but do not tell them so.
If we are still here to witness the destruction of our planet some five billion years or more hence, then we will have achieved something so unprecedented in the history of life that we should be willing to sing our swansong with joy -- sic transit gloria mundi.
"In The Midst of Life...", in The Panda's Thumb
In the world of human thought generally, and in physical science particularly, the most important and fruitful concepts are those to which it is impossible to attach a well-defined meaning.
Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information on it.
Science itself, therefore, may be regarded as a minimal problem, consisting of the completest possible presentment of facts with the least possible expenditure of thought.
How did Biot arrive at the partial differential equation? [the heat conduction equation, Uxx=Ut]... Perhaps Laplace gave Biot the equation and left him to sink or swim for a few years in trying to derive it. That would have been merely an instance of the way great mathematicians since the very beginnings of mathematical research have effortlessly maintained their superiority over ordinary mortals.
Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage.
One cannot play chess if one becomes aware of the pieces as living souls and of the fact that the Whites and the Blacks have more in common with each other than with the players. Suddenly one loses all interest in who will be champion.
The chemists are a strange class of mortals, impelled by an almost insane impulse to seek their pleasure among smoke and vapor, soot and flame, poisons and poverty, yet among all these evils I seem to live so sweetly, that may I die if I would change places with the Persian King.
Since when was genius found respectable?
Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows.
The Origin of Species
To know only one thing well is to have a barbaric mind: civilization implies the graceful relation of all varieties of experience to a central humane system of thought. The present age is peculiarly barbaric: introduce, say, a Hebrew scholar to an ichthyologist or an authority on Danish place names and the pair of them would have no single topic in common but the weather or the war (if there happened to be a war in progress, which is usual in this barbaric age).
For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled.
Book lovers are thought by unbookish people to be gentle and unworldly, and perhaps a few of them are so. But there are others who will lie and scheme and steal to get books as wildly and unconscionably as the dope-taker in pursuit of his drug. They may not want the books to read immediately, or at all; they want them to possess, to range on their shelves, to have at command. They want books as a Turk is thought to want concubines -- not to be hastily deflowered, but to be kept at their master's call, and enjoyed more often in thought than in reality.
Tempest-Tost
You are right on target when you say that mad scientists have a total disregard for the well-being of others. We don't want to spread evil; we just see no point in bothering to spread good.
Maybe we're just lucky to live in a universe composed by a divine Bach. Perhaps next door, the inhabitants of a John Cage universe muddle along in chaos...
In sci.physics
Q. "Do you think everything works out for the best?"
A. "Maybe not the best, but everything works out to something."
Philosophy is a game with objectives and no rules. Mathematics is a game with rules and no objectives.
I'm not against the police; I'm just afraid of them.
The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
Sentimental or not, I confess that the predicament of poor Valentino touched me. It provided grist for my mill, but I couldn't quite enjoy it. Here was a young man who was living daily the dream of millions of other young men. Here was one who was catnip to women. Here was one who had wealth and fame. And here was one who was very unhappy.
I didn't think; I experimented.
[John] Dalton's records, carefully preserved for a century, were destroyed during the World War II bombing of Manchester. It is not only the living who are killed in war.
You will be able to appreciate the influence of such an Engine on the future progress of science. I live in a country which is incapable of estimating it.
I also believe that academic freedom should protect the right of a professor or student to advocate Marxism, socialism, communism, or any other minority viewpoint -- no matter how distasteful to the majority, provided...
You can not apply mathematics as long as words still becloud reality.
Ambition has but one reward for all: / A little power, a little transient fame, A grave to rest in, and a fading name.
So as this only point among the rest remaineth sure and certain, namely, that nothing is certain...
The Natural History, tr. Philemon Holland
They [corporations] cannot commit trespass nor be outlawed, nor excommunicated, for they have no souls.
Of course, corporations and governments have a right to something for their money. They pay the wages. But they don't have the ethical right to literally purchase the copyright of a citizen's potential contribution to society. In a democracy they should not have the legal right to silence the quasi-totality of the functioning élite in order to satisfy a managerial taste for control and secrecy.
On Equilibrium
In political discussion heat is in inverse proportion to knowledge.
All that is human must retrograde if it do not advance.
I saw Eternity the other night, / Like a great ring of pure and endless light, / All calm, as it was bright; / And round beneath it, / Time in hours, days, years, / Driv'n by the spheres / Like a vast shadow mov'd; in which the world / And all her train were hurl'd.
"The World"
The world is a tragedy to those who feel, but a comedy to those who think.
It has been said that for those who "feel", life is a tragedy and for those who "think", it is a comedy. There is no need to live only half a life. For those who both think and feel, life is an adventure.
An Intimate History of Humanity
War is just to those to whom war is necessary.
One can be instructed in society, one is inspired only in solitude.
It is well to know something of the manners of various peoples, in order more sanely to judge our own, and that we do not think that everything against our modes is ridiculous, and against reason, as those who have seen nothing are accustomed to think.
In Discourse I
I have sat through an Italian Opera, till, for sheer pain, and inexplicable anguish, I haved rushed out into the noisiest places of the crowded streets, to solace myself with sounds, which I was not obliged to follow, and get rid of the distracting torment of endless, fruitless, barren attention!
"A Chapter on Ears"
The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and for deeds left undone.
The Law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich, as well as the poor, to sleep under the bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.
Real-world problems are often "high-dimensional", that is, are described by large numbers of dependent variables. Algorithms must be specifically designed to function well in such high-dimensional spaces.
"Weather Prediction Using a Genetic Memory"
God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board.
The warning message we sent the Russians was a calculated ambiguity that would be clearly understood.
Everything you've learned in school as "obvious" becomes less and less obvious as you begin to study the universe. For example, there are no solids in the universe. There's not even a suggestion of a solid. There are no absolute continuums. There are no surfaces. There are no straight lines.
If all the world's a stage, I want to operate the trap door.
He had that rare weird electricity about him -- that extremely wild and heavy presence that you only see in a person who has abandoned all hope of ever behaving "normally."
Fear and Loathing '72
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!) but "That's funny ..."