The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness.

A physicist is just an atom's way of looking at itself.

Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real.

If quantum mechanics hasn't profoundly shocked you, you haven't understood it yet.

An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made, in a narrow field.

When we measure something we are forcing an undetermined, undefined world to assume an experimental value. We are not measuring the world, we are creating it.

I go into the Upanishads to ask questions.

There are some things so serious you have to laugh at them.

Nothing exists until it is measured.

No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical.

Your theory is crazy, but it's not crazy enough to be true.

No school without spectacular eccentrics and crazy hearts is worth attending.

That line between love and lust was thin as a whisper.

The science of genetics is in a transition period, becoming an exact science just as the chemistry in the times of Lavoisier, who made the balance an indispensable implement in chemical research.

Come away, O human child: To the waters and the wild with a fairy, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

A bet is a tax on bullshit; and it is a just tax, tribute paid by the bullshitters to those with genuine knowledge.

We should not clap our hands and mourn, for he is out of trouble. You are still in it.

Books are cool, but knowledge without mileage doesn't mean anything to me.

Writing is done by someone. It is not, like some mythical goddess, a skill that springs forth, full grown from the genes of inspiration.

I am unusual for a Frenchman - I have absolutely nothing against the United States.

I frown at him. How does he know all this information? And why, after two years of avoiding becoming a Dauntless leader at all costs, is he suddenly acting like one?