My father, Robert Ernst, was teaching as an architect at the technical high school of our city.

A brief visit to Nepal started my insatiable love for Asian art.

I wanted to understand the secrets behind my chemical experiments and behind the processes in nature.

Thus, after finishing high school, I started with high expectations and enthusiasm to study chemistry at the famous Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.

In recent years, more and more of my time has become absorbed by administrative work for the research council of ETH-Z of which I am presently the president.

I am not surprised that they show no intention to follow in my footsteps, although if I had a second chance myself, I would certainly try to repeat my present career.

On the theoretical side, I was concerned with stochastic resonance.

I recognized that teaching and research institutions vitally depend on the involvement of active scientists also in management functions.

I thus decided to leave the university forever and tried to find an industrial job in the United States.

Being peaceful may not be exciting like being at war, but it is the bliss and joy of life that you really enjoy.

If you ever have to choose between loving two people, always pick the second. If you really loved the first, you wouldn't have fallen in love with the second.

The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender, or submission.

When I was 12, all I wanted was to be good at school, and to do something admirable, something you can't take away from me because I'm not popular or beautiful enough.

Better a sovereign in squalor than a slave in splendor.

Love is always love, come whence it may. A heart that beats at your approach, an eye that weeps when you go away are things so rare, so sweet, so precious that they must never be despised.

When you get a range expansion, the market is sending you a very loud, clear signal that the market is getting ready to move in the direction of that expansion.

Do not spend your time thinking about the world or your relationships to individuals. These are all impermanent. They have only to do with the body.

There is an ancient saying, famous among men, that thou shouldst not judge fully of a man's life before he dieth, whether it should be called blest or wretched.