“When you start in science, you are brainwashed into believing how careful you must be, and how difficult it is to discover things. There’s something that might be called the ‘graduate student syndrome’; graduate students hardly believe they can make a discovery.”

It seems likely that most if not all the genetic information in any organism is carried by nucleic acid – usually by DNA, although certain small viruses use RNA as their genetic material.

If, for example, all the codons are triplets, then in addition to the correct reading of the message, there are two incorrect readings which we shall obtain if we do not start the grouping into sets of three at the right place.

It now seems very likely that many of the 64 triplets, possibly most of them, may code one amino acid or another, and that in general several distinct triplets may code one amino acid.

How is the base sequence, divided into codons? There is nothing in the backbone of the nucleic acid, which is perfectly regular, to show us how to group the bases into codons.

It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material.

It is not easy to convey, unless one has experienced it, the dramatic feeling of sudden enlightenment that floods the mind when the right idea finally clinches into place.

Protein synthesis is a central problem for the whole of biology, and that it is in all probability closely related to gene action.

Since I essentially knew nothing, I had an almost completely free choice.

A good scientist values criticism almost higher than friendship: no, in science criticism is the height and measure of friendship.

Avoid the temptation to work so hard that there is no time left for serious thinking.

Anybody who believes that the earth is less than 10,000 years old needs psychiatric help.

God is a hacker, not an engineer.

If the code does indeed have some logical foundation then it is legitimate to consider all the evidence, both good and bad, in any attempt to deduce it.

Almost all aspects of life are engineered at the molecular level, and without understanding molecules we can only have a very sketchy understanding of life itself.

There is no scientific study more vital to man than the study of his own brain. Our entire view of the universe depends on it.

Evolution is cleverer than you are.

I can believe things that are true and things that aren’t true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they’re true or not.

Anyone who believes what a cat tells him deserves all he gets.

Freedom will destroy itself if it is not exercised within some sort of moral framework, somebody of shared beliefs, some spiritual heritage transmitted through the Church, the family, and the school.

Believe in yourself, know that you are great. Keep taking steps forward CHOOSE to run into fate.

No nation was ever so virtuous as each believes itself, and none was ever so wicked as each believes the other.

Darling, look how far you’ve come do you truly believe you are unable to rise from the ashes and grow new wings.

I’m a big believer in winging it. I’m a big believer that you’re never going to find the perfect city travel experience or the perfect meal without a constant willingness to experience a bad one.

She was everything real in a world of make-believe.