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.

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

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

There's nothing better than a good, blind referee.

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.

I like making films because I like to go into another world. I like to get lost into another world.

I know all the problems of the schools. They're rigid, they're bureaucratic, they've got a lot of problems. But it's such an important institution, and holds such promise.

Sometimes it can be useful to read your bad reviews.

I have been long associated with British music. I have favoured it as my alternate music next to American.

The vital air of friendship is composed of confidence. Friendship perishes in proportion as this air diminishes.

If you're too big to serve. You're too small to lead.

Our society has been eaten up by the economic view of things, which routinely forces us to work at jobs that don't mean anything.

The most important thing today is to stop US wars.