It is a common remark that men talk most who think least; just as frogs cease their quacking when a light is brought to the water-side.

The usual designation of the magnitude scale to my name does less than justice to the great part that Dr. Gutenberg played in extending the scale to apply to earthquakes in all parts of the world.

Nothing is less predictable than the development of an active scientific field.

Don't wait for extraordinary circumstance to do good; try to use ordinary situations.

As seismologists gained more experience from earthquake records, it became obvious that the problem could not be reduced to a single peak acceleration. In fact, a full frequency of vibrations occurs.

Only fools, liars, and charlatans predict earthquakes

The rose does not bloom without thorns. True, but would that the thorns did not outlive the rose.

Spring makes everything young again except man.

Refining is inevitable in science when you have made measurements of a phenomenon for a long period of time.

I was lucky because logarithmic plots are a device of the devil.

If one introduces the concept of energy of an earthquake then that is a theoretically derived quantity.

Idiots emit bogons, causing machinery to malfunction in their presence. System administrators absorb bogons, letting machinery work again.

This is why there is something awful about human freedom. This power to make a choice which will never cease to reverberate.

The ancient teaching of Tao tells us that knowing what you really are is wisdom, and living it is virtue.

Aviation, this young modern giant, exemplifies the possible relationships of women with the creations of science.

Committees are to get everybody together and homogenize their thinking.

If you ask me, most people have children just as their own enthusiasm about life begins to wane.

The result of the educative process is capacity for further education.

When you think of how history is revealed, we know certain things to be facts at certain periods of time, which turn out not to be so factual as time marches on.

The only way to learn compassion is through your heart; you have to back up and pass through your own pain.

Pass no rash condemnation on other peoples words or actions.