I learned English, my sixth language at this point, quite quickly.

Knowing without seeing is at the heart of chemistry.

From a chemist's point of view, the surface or interior of a star…is boring—there are no molecules there.

I came to a happy Jewish family in dark days in Europe.

One day I discovered that one could get the barrier to internal rotation in ethane approximately right using this method. This was the beginning of my work on organic molecules.

I am a teacher, and I am proud of it. At Cornell University I have taught primarily undergraduates, and indeed almost every year since 1966 have taught first-year general chemistry.

Breakthroughs arise when someone can combine many ideas together. Think broadly, not deeply.

All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses, And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.

It's up to you to make your own destiny and not up to destiny to make you

Listen to your instincts

No benefit is more constant than simplicity; no happiness more constant than peace.

The beads around my neck [at Olympics in 1968] indicated that there were so many Blacks throughout the history of this country that have been maimed and killed by way of hangings.

Those who give not till they die show that they would not then if they could keep it any longer.

Most modern calendars mar the sweet simplicity of our lives by reminding us that each day that passes is the anniversary of some perfectly uninteresting event.

Now India is a place beyond all others where one must not take things too seriously—the midday sun always excepted.

Keeping my family out of prison best I can. That is success to me. I created that without selling records.