Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.

I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.

Medicine is my lawful wife and literature my mistress; when I get tired of one, I spend the night with the other.

Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is Enlightenment.

The deepest sin against the human mind is to believe things without evidence.

The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart.

Although modesty is natural to man, it is not natural to children. Modesty only begins with the knowledge of evil.

My weapon is literature

Better know nothing than half-know many things.

Dare to think for yourself.

When you know better you do better.

If I could explain it to the average person, I wouldn't have been worth the Nobel Prize.

Seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave.

I decided to teach because I think that any person who studies philosophy has to be involved actively.

Science is what we have learned about how to keep from fooling ourselves.

He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.

Science is a rising force, It is creating a new world about us. It needs to be watched and pressed into service, and in any case, it would be courting disaster to ignore it.

It took us three years to build the NeXT computer. If we'd given customers what they said they wanted, we'd have built a computer they'd have been happy with a year after we spoke to them - not something they'd want now.

You can never learn less, you can only learn more.

Necessity is the mother of invention.

Books are as useful to a stupid person as a mirror is useful to a blind person.