Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
On my return to Pittsburgh, I resolved to go back to the fundamental problems of electronic structure that I had contemplated abstractly many years earlier.
Time is the best appraiser of scientific work, and I am aware that an industrial discovery rarely produces all its fruit in the hands of its first inventor.
In history and in life one sometimes seems to glimpse a ferocious law which states: to he that has, will be given; from he that has not, will be taken away.
Chemistry, unlike other sciences, sprang originally from delusions and superstitions, and was at its commencement exactly on a par with magic and astrology.
The development of a rational view of the nature of catalysis was thus absolutely dependent on the creation of the concept of the rate of chemical reaction.
Progress is made by trial and failure; the failures are generally a hundred times more numerous than the successes ; yet they are usually left unchronicled.
We are seeing the cells of plants and animals more and more clearly as chemical factories, where the various products are manufactured in separate workshops.
Science advances through tentative answers to a series of more and more subtle questions which reach deeper and deeper into the essence of natural phenomena.
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.
True, the initial ideas are in general those of an individual, but the establishment of the reality and truth is in general the work of more than one person.
The magnitude of the atomic weight determines the character of the element, just as the magnitude of the molecule determines the character of a compound body.
I had been in the hurrying waters too long not to appreciate an opportunity to lie on the bank and rest, watch others, and gain strength for the coming years.
Instead, in the absence of respect for human rights, science and its offspring technology have been used in this century as brutal instruments for oppression.
Our children were mostly brought up and educated in the Churchill suburb east of Pittsburgh. Each summer, we took them back to England for an extended period.
The scientific study of Nature tends not only to correct and ennoble the intellectual conceptions of man; it serves also to ameliorate his physical condition.
A nice adaptation of conditions will make almost any hypothesis agree with the phenomena. This will please the imagination but does not advance our knowledge.
Monsters exist, but they are too few in numbers to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are…the functionaries ready to believe and act without asking questions.
My mother used to wheel me about the campus when we lived in that neighborhood and, as she recounted years later, she would tell me that I would go to McGill.
Organic compounds exist in which a hydrogen atom, joined to the carbon, acquires acid properties as a result of the proximity of certain functional groupings.
I learned from Linus Pauling it's not a disgrace in science to publish something that's wrong. What's bad is to publish something that's not very interesting.
Nothing can be more certain than this: that we are just beginning to learn something of the wonders of the world on which we live and move and have our being.
My father was trained as a saddler, but in fact as a young man worked in his father's business of rearing and selling cattle, so he grew up in the countryside.
On the day when two army corps may mutually annihilate each other in a second, probably all civilized nations will recoil with horror and disband their troops.
In organic chemistry there exist certain types which are conserved even when, in place of hydrogen, equal volumes of chlorine, of bromine, etc. are introduced.
From an early age I was told that I was expected to do more than continue to run a small business. Education was important and seen as a way of moving forward.
Not long ago, I got to meet some troopers whose lives had been saved. They came with their wives, their children, their parents. It was a very moving occasion.
If it is a relief to take your clothes off at night, be sure that something is wrong. Clothes should not be a burden. They should be a comfort and a protection.
This success led my theoretical group to the chemical reactivity theory, extending more and more widely the range of compound and reactions that were discussed.
Science is the highest personification of the nation because that nation will remain the first which carries the furthest the works of thought and intelligence.
It is not necessarily true that expensive experiments are not worthwhile doing but there are plenty of rather cheap experiments which are certainly worth doing.
My interest in the sciences started with mathematics in the very beginning, and later with chemistry in early high school and the proverbial home chemistry set.
Human curiosity, the urge to know, is a powerful force and is perhaps the best secret weapon of all in the struggle to unravel the workings of the natural world.
My Cleveland years were both scientifically and personally most rewarding. My wife Judy was able to rejoin me in our research and my research group grew rapidly.
The secret of science is to ask the right question, and it is the choice of problem more than anything else that marks the man of genius in the scientific world.
After some minor pieces of theoretical study that I worked on, a student in my statistical mechanics class brought to my attention a problem in polyelectrolytes.
We can always find something to be thankful for, and there may be reasons why we ought to be thankful for even those dispensations which appear dark and frowning.
It is essential that our present negative propaganda regarding psychedelic drugs be replaced with honesty and truthfulness about their effects, both good and bad.
I was searching for something a little more than a dashing metaphor, a good deal less than a cultural map: and for those purposes the two cultures is about right.
The artist must ask you to think of the world in a different way, and sometimes it's a more abstract way; sometimes it's a completely different kind of colouring.
It's very satisfying to promote science and education and see good results. Setting a good example for young people, being a role model, is very important for me.
The philosophy of the school was quite simple - the bright boys specialised in Latin, the not so bright in science and the rest managed with geography or the like.
Try as I might, I could never feel any great affection for a man who so much resembled a Baked Alaska - sweet, warm and gungy on the outside, hard and cold within.
Experimental science hardly ever affords us more than approximations to the truth; and whenever many agents are concerned we are in great danger of being mistaken.
The problem of an atomic war must not be confused by minor problems such as Communism versus capitalism. An atomic war would kill everyone, left, right, or center.
The Greeks understood the mysterious power of the below things. They are the ones who gave us one of the most beautiful words in our language, the word enthusiasm.
The universe is asymmetric and I am persuaded that life, as it is known to us, is a direct result of the asymmetry of the universe or of its indirect consequences.
I knew that the Hague Convention prohibited the use of poison in war. I didn't know the details of the terms of the Convention, but I did know of that prohibition.
A country is considered the more civilised the more the wisdom and efficiency of its laws hinder a weak man from becoming too weak and a powerful one too powerful.
Because all of biology is connected, one can often make a breakthrough with an organism that exaggerates a particular phenomenon, and later explore the generality.
If all the elements are arranged in the order of their atomic weights, a periodic repetition of properties is obtained. This is expressed by the law of periodicity.