“It is of the essence of virtue that the good is not to be done for the sake of a reward.”

Man is a messenger who forgot the message.

It is not enough for me to ask question; I want to know how to answer the one question that seems to encompass everything I face: What am I here for?

A religious man is a person who holds God and man in one thought at one time

The idea of dependence is an explanation, whereas self-sufficiency is an unprecedented, nonanalogous concept in terms of what we know about life within nature.

Ultimately there is no power to narcissistic, self-indulgent thinking. Authentic thinking originates with an encounter with the world.

To serve does not mean to surrender but to share.

To pray is to dream in league with God, to envision His holy visions.

Knowledge-like the sky- is never private property. No teacher has a right to withhold it from anyone who asks for it. Teaching is the art of sharing.

Time is an essential dimension of existence defiant of man’s power, and truth reigns in supreme majesty, unrivaled, inimitable, and can never be defeated.

To sense the ultimate in the common and the simple, to feel in the rush of the passing the stillness of the eternal.

In a controversy, the instant we feel anger, we have already ceased striving for truth and have begun striving for ourselves.

The issue of prayer is not prayer; the issue of prayer is God.

Mankind will not perish for want of information; but only for want of appreciation.

To answer, to live in a way which is compatible with the grandeur and mystery of living.

We can all do our share to redeem the world in spite of all absurdities and all frustrations and all disappointments.

Mankind will not die for lack of information; it may perish for lack of appreciation.

My most prized possession was my library card from the Oakland Public Library.

I’ve said it before about the Nobel Prize: it’s like being struck by a more or less benign avalanche. It was unexpected, unlooked for, and extraordinary.

It is the supreme honour that a scientist can receive. Some of the giants in physics and chemistry have received this prize.

The citation for the 1971 Nobel Prize in Chemistry reads, ‘for contribution to the knowledge of electronic structures and geometry of molecules, especially free radicals,’ and therefore implies that the Prize has been awarded for a long series of studies extending practically over my whole scientific life.

It is very difficult to find appropriate words to say ‘thank you’ for an honour like the Nobel Prize.

I learned that writing is the consolation prize you are given when you don’t get the thing you want the most.

The Waste Land not figuring very largely in Mam’s scheme of things. “The thing is,” I said finally, “he won the Nobel Prize.” “Well,” she said, with that unerring grasp of inessentials which is the prerogative of mothers, “I’m not surprised. It was a beautiful overcoat.”

I do feel quite strongly about this that probably one of the things that unfortunately this age now to get a Nobel Prize is to really use part of it to help the young people get excited about science.