The personal was, compared with the tides of great nations, a bothersome detail.

It was getting the results that made science worth doing; the accolades were a thin, secondary pleasure.

Once you've grown up in space, moving on means moving out, not going back to Earth. Nobody wants to be a groundpounder.

When the chemistry is right, all the experiments work.

(Crank theories) always violated the first rule of a scientific model: they were uncheckable.

People fear their hidden selves, afraid that they will burst out.

Any technology that does not appear magical is insufficiently advanced.

In a tough situation, don't avoid acting just because it's easier or comfortable. Don't lapse into a passive state. People who give up, die.

To shine is better than to reflect.

Passion is inversely proportional to the amount of real information available

Science is like literature, a continuing dialog among diverse and conflicting voices, no one ever wholly right or wholly wrong, but a steady conversation forever provisional and personal and living.

Men employ speech only to conceal their thoughts.

Out of our suffering we emerge. Our struggles are really our only hope.

The tone and tendency of liberalism...is to attack the institutions of the country under the name of reform and to make war on the manners and customs of the people under the pretext of progress.

The dawn of knowledge is usually the false dawn.

I think kids in general are much more capable of understanding the idea of being transgender than adults.

Failure is not fatal. Only failure to get back up is.

I've been to your mountains, I've been to your sea-side, and everywhere I went somebody's wanted a free ride.

Children's games are hardly games. Children are never more serious than when they play.

No form of human exchange is more profitable than the exchange of ideas. If I give you a thought in return for one of your thoughts, each of us will have gained a 100 percent dividend.

You're not supposed to cuss when you're an old lady, and just when there's so much more to cuss about.