I've just finished reading some of my early papers, and you know, when I'd finished I said to myself, 'Rutherford, my boy, you used to be a damned clever fellow.' (1911)

All of physics is either impossible or trivial. It is impossible until you understand it, and then it becomes trivial.

Never say, "I tried it once and it did not work."

A theory that you can't explain to a bartender is probably no damn good.

We haven't got the money, so we've got to think.

An alleged scientific discovery has no merit unless it can be explained to a barmaid.

It was almost as incredible as if you fired a 15-inch shell at a piece of tissue paper and it came back and hit you.

If your experiment needs statistics, you ought to have done a better experiment.

The only possible conclusion the social sciences can draw is: some do, some don't.

All science is either physics or stamp collecting.

I must confess it was very unexpected and I am very startled at my metamorphosis into a chemist.

Travel is never a matter of money but of courage

When you live in darkness, you live under the rulership of the devil.

When we think of all the beatitudes in life, our heart shall be merry.

Washington is a place where men praise courage and act on elaborate personal cost-benefit calculations.

I don't have any complex plans for playing a character. I think all I try to do is not make too many bad guy faces and not ever try to seem too good. I just try to put it in the middle somewhere.

I am terribly proud of-I was born in Cambridge in 1952 and my initials are DNA!

The wrong way always seems the more reasonable.

It's unfortunate that in an interview sometimes things can seem so black and white.

I sleep each night a little better, a little more confidently, because Lyndon Johnson is my president.

An optimist expects his dreams to come true; a pessimist expects his nightmares to.