Dissent is the native activity of the scientist, and it has got him into a good deal of trouble in the last years. But if that is cut off, what is left will not be a scientist. And I doubt whether it will be a man.

Einstein was a man who could ask immensely simple questions. And what his work showed is that when the answers are simple too, then you can hear God thinking.

The most wonderful discovery made by scientists is science itself.

No science is immune to the infection of politics and the corruption of power.

Every animal leaves traces of what it was; man alone leaves traces of what he created.

Man is unique not because he does science, and his is unique not because he does art, but because science and art equally are expressions of his marvelous plasticity of mind.

The world is full of people who never quite get into the first team and who just miss the prizes at the flower show.

It is vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquillity: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.

Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty.

Science has nothing to be ashamed of even in the ruins of Nagasaki. The shame is theirs who appeal to other values than the human imaginative values which science has evolved.

That is the essence of science: ask an impertinent question, and you are on the way to a pertinent answer.

We are all afraid for our confidence, for the future, for the world. That is the nature of the human imagination. Yet every man, every civilization, has gone forward because of its engagement with what it has set itself to do.

The values by which we are to survive are not rules for just and unjust conduct, but are those deeper illuminations in whose light justice and injustice, good and evil, means and ends are seen in fearful sharpness of outline.

Dissent is the native activity of the scientist, and it has got him into a good deal of trouble in the last years. But if that is cut off, what is left will not be a scientist. And I doubt whether it will be a man.

The world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation.

The hand is the cutting edge of the mind.

You will die but the carbon will not; its career does not end with you. It will return to the soil, and there a plant may take it up again in time, sending it once more on a cycle of plant and animal life.

The world is made up of people who never quite get into the first team and who just miss the prizes at the flower show.

It is important that students bring a certain ragamuffin, barefoot irreverence to their studies; they are not here to worship what is known, but to question it.

We gain our ends only with the laws of nature; we control her only by understanding her laws.

The wish to hurt, the momentary intoxication with pain, is the loophole through which the pervert climbs into the minds of ordinary men.

Man masters nature not by force but by understanding. This is why science has succeeded where magic failed: because it has looked for no spell to cast over nature.

Power is the by-product of understanding.

To me, being an intellectual doesn't mean knowing about intellectual issues; it means taking pleasure in them.

Has there ever been a society which has died of dissent? Several have died of conformity in our lifetime.

Certainty ends inquiry.

Ask an impertinent question and you are on the way to the pertinent answer.

Every judgment in science stands on the edge of error, and is personal.

The symbol and the metaphor are as necessary to science as to poetry.

Man is unique not because he does science, and he is unique not because he does art, but because science and art equally are expressions of his marvelous plasticity of mind.

The most remarkable discovery ever made by scientists is science itself. The discovery must be compared in importance with the invention of cave-painting and of writing.

Science is the acceptance of what works and the rejection of what does not. That needs more courage than we might think.

It is a mistake to think of creative activity as something unusual.

Will dissent be permitted? The answer to that question will determine whether the society is a free society or a fear society.

Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.

May we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.

Down through the centuries, this trick has been tried by various establishments throughout the world. They force people to get involved in the kind of examination that has only one aim and that is to stamp out dissent.

People may believe that there can be a society where dissent is not permitted, but which is nonetheless not a fear society because everyone agrees with one another and therefore no one wants to dissent.

In contrast, fear societies are societies in which dissent is banned.

Throughout the lead-up to the war, CNN worked hard to air all sides of the story. We had a regular segment called Voices of Dissent in which we spent time covering antiwar protests and interviewing those who were opposed to the war with Iraq.

No matter that patriotism is too often the refuge of scoundrels. Dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the true duty of patriots.

Free societies are societies in which the right of dissent is protected.

It's so easy for propaganda to work, and dissent to be mocked.

Freedom is hammered out on the anvil of discussion, dissent, and debate.

Science exists, moreover, only as a journey toward troth. Stifle dissent and you end that journey.

In a democracy, dissent is an act of faith.

Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels - men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.

Dissent is the native activity of the scientist, and it has got him into a good deal of trouble in the last years. But if that is cut off, what is left will not be a scientist. And I doubt whether it will be a man.

A dissenting minority feels free only when it can impose its will on the majority: what it abominates most is the dissent of the majority.