Cambridge was the place for someone from the Colonies or the Dominions to go on to, and it was to the Cavendish Laboratory that one went to do physics.

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.

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.

I did not feel a particularly strong call to any one subject, but read voraciously and widely and began to find science interesting.

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.

I like teaching and the contact with young minds keeps one on one's toes, but increasing responsibilities have forced me to shed much of it in recent years.

People who get Nobel prizes aren't necessarily the most imaginative of people. People who sometimes find a system, develop a system, do very useful work.

One cannot plan for the unexpected.

There is no color to known to beauty except elegance.

And he recalled the ancient adage: Who must do the harsh things? He who can.

They will need you to put the right books in their hands, book in which they can lose themselves and books in which they can find themselves.

Those who criticize our generation forget who raised it.

If you want to be a good conversationalist, be a good listener. To be interesting, be interested.

I measure the moment in the heartbeats I skip

To Death I yield, but not to Doubt, who slays before!

The burning soul, the burden'd mind, In books alone companions find.

I have lived temperately....I double the doctor's recommendation of a glass and a half wine each day and even treble it with a friend.

Agreeable society is the first essential in constituting the happiness and of course the value of our existence.