“The single thing which makes any man happiest is the realization that he has worked up to the limits of his ability, his capacity. It’s all the better, of course, if this work has made a contribution to knowledge, or toward moving the human race a little farther forward.”

In much of society, research means to investigate something you do not know or understand.

A picture does a great job, but it’s not nearly like being there.

This blowing dust became increasingly thicker. It was very much like landing in a fast moving ground fog.

I only go in a small fraction of an inch, maybe an eighth of an inch, but I can see the footprints of my boots and the treads in the fine sandy particles.

You’ve got to expect things are going to go wrong. And we always need to prepare ourselves for handling the unexpected.

The regret on our side is, they used to say years ago, we are reading about you in science class. Now they say, we are reading about you in history class.

It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn’t feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.

Geologists have a saying – rocks remember.

Space has not changed but technology has, in many cases, improved dramatically.

It’s a great thing for a man to walk on the moon. But it’s a greater thing for God to walk on the earth.

I tell you, we’re going to be busy for a minute.

Pilots take no special joy in walking: pilots like flying.

History will remember the twentieth century for two technological developments: atomic energy and space flight.

The importance of the new plant of progress and in the fruits it will bear.

The view of the moon that we’ve been having recently is really spectacular.

It’s a brilliant surface in that sunlight. The horizon seems quite close to you because the curvature is so much more pronounced than here on earth. It’s an interesting place to be. I recommend it.

We evolved the ability to communicate disappointment to teach those around us good manners

I can’t point to any major episodes of sexual discrimination in my early life. But I was so aware of the crime, the shame that there was no use of my mother’s ability and energy.

I understood somehow my mother’s frustration. And that it was no good not only for her, but for her children or her husband, that she didn’t have a real use of her ability.

Cancer can take away all of my physical abilities. It cannot touch my mind, it cannot touch my heart, and it cannot touch my soul.

Now my ability to notice things and respond to things and be here is far more profound. With that comes happiness, with it comes sadness, but it’s a beautiful life.

The first qualification for a historian is to have no ability to invent.

On the onside, first there is God, then Sourav Ganguly.

Every actor has a strength, and sometimes you just respond to things that you see yourself better at. I’m aware of what I can and can’t do.