The laboratory routine, which involves a great deal of measurement, filing, and tabulation, is either my lifeline or my chief handicap, I hardly know which.

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.

Nothing is less predictable than the development of an active scientific field.

Don't wait for extraordinary circumstance to do good; try to use ordinary situations.

As seismologists gained more experience from earthquake records, it became obvious that the problem could not be reduced to a single peak acceleration. In fact, a full frequency of vibrations occurs.

Only fools, liars, and charlatans predict earthquakes

The rose does not bloom without thorns. True, but would that the thorns did not outlive the rose.

Spring makes everything young again except man.

Refining is inevitable in science when you have made measurements of a phenomenon for a long period of time.

I was lucky because logarithmic plots are a device of the devil.

If one introduces the concept of energy of an earthquake then that is a theoretically derived quantity.

Take chances, make mistakes. That's how you grow. Pain nourishes your courage. You have to fail in order to practice being brave.

Remember, if you're heading in the wrong direction, God allows U-turns!

Gracie, you are exactly where you are supposed to be and everything is going to be all right.Willem

In total acceptance, almost everything becomes a revelation.

I don't care what you label me as long as you call me president.

I really love comedy. I love making people laugh. But other things also appeal to me.

People are dumb and they think that laughing equals cosigning a belief in the ideology, which it doesn't.

So they ended up turning this little twenty eight page book into the movie. And it's all about this stinky, smelly ogre who doesn't care what anybody thinks of him.

With the gun you can make the earth red but if you have a plough you can make the earth green.

But it's really hard to eat good when you're traveling because you see fast food and you want to go to this restaurant and that restaurant.