In physics, you don't have to go around making trouble for yourself - nature does it for you.

In physics, you don't have to go around making trouble for yourself - nature does it for you.

The great work must inevitably be obscure, except to the very few, to those who like the author himself are read more

The great work must inevitably be obscure, except to the very few, to those who like the author himself are initiated into the mysteries. Communication then is secondary: it is perpetuation which is important. For this only one good reader is necessary.

If you build a better mousetrap, you will catch better mice.

If you build a better mousetrap, you will catch better mice.

There is only one nature--the division into science and
engineering is a human imposition, not a natural one. Indeed, read more

There is only one nature--the division into science and
engineering is a human imposition, not a natural one. Indeed,
the division is a human failure; it reflects our limited capacity
to comprehend the whole.

It is not always possible to know what one has learned, or when the dawning will arrive. You will continue read more

It is not always possible to know what one has learned, or when the dawning will arrive. You will continue to shift, sift, to shake out and to double back. The synthesis that finally occurs can be in the most unexpected place and the most unexpected time. My charge ... is to be alert to the dawnings.

When you take stuff from one writer it's plagiarism; but when you take it from many writers, it's research.

When you take stuff from one writer it's plagiarism; but when you take it from many writers, it's research.

I think complexity is mostly sort of crummy stuff that is there because it's too expensive to change the interface.

I think complexity is mostly sort of crummy stuff that is there because it's too expensive to change the interface.

There are more ideas on earth than intellectuals imagine. And these ideas are more active, stronger, more resistant, more passionate read more

There are more ideas on earth than intellectuals imagine. And these ideas are more active, stronger, more resistant, more passionate than "politicians" think. We have to be there at the birth of ideas, the bursting outward of their force: not in books expressing them, but in events manifesting this force, in struggles carried on around ideas, for or against them. Ideas do not rule the world. But it is because the world has ideas... that it is not passively ruled by those who are its leaders or those who would like to teach it, once and for all, what it must think.

There is no adequate defense, except stupidity, against the impact of a new idea.

There is no adequate defense, except stupidity, against the impact of a new idea.