“An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going.”

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.

A theory should not attempt to explain all the facts, because some of the facts are wrong.

The balance of evidence both from the cell-free system and from the study of mutation, suggests that this does not occur at random, and that triplets coding the same amino acid may well be rather similar.

The ultimate aim of the modern movement in biology is in fact to explain all biology in terms of physics and chemistry.

If revealed religions have revealed anything it is that they are usually wrong.

In my experience most mathematicians are intellectually lazy and especially dislike reading experimental papers. He seemed to have very strong biological intuitions but unfortunately of negative sign.

A final proof of our ideas can only be obtained by detailed studies on the alterations produced in the amino acid sequence of a protein by mutations of the type discussed here.

A man who is right every time is not likely to do very much.

We are sometimes asked what the result would be if we put four +’s in one gene. To answer this my colleagues have recently put together not merely four but six +’s.

Free will is located in or near the anterior cingulate sulcus.

No man is really honest; none of us is above the influence of gain.

I think, as musicians, our music should be who we are. Sometimes it’s not – it’s someone else’s. All heartfelt music and all honest music, it’s who we are. Of course, our upbringing has everything to do with it.

A sound head, an honest heart, and an humble spirit are the three best guides through time and to eternity.

When we are really honest with ourselves we must admit our lives are all that really belong to us. So it is how we use our lives that determines the kind of men we are.

Richard Pryor is, in my mind, the most honest comedian. He bared his soul to people. I think that’s why everybody loved him so much.

And is he honest who resists his genius or conscience only for the sake of present ease or gratification

Just like my Uncle Charlie used to say, just before he sprung the trap: He said, You can’t cheat and honest man! Never give a sucker an even break or smarten up a chump!

You can’t cheat an honest man.