I became almost immediately fascinated by the possibilities of trying out all conceivable reactions with them, some leading to explosions, others to unbearable poisoning of the air in our house, frightening my parents.

I wanted to understand the secrets behind my chemical experiments and behind the processes in nature.

Soon, I knew that I would become a chemist, rather than a composer.

My father, Robert Ernst, was teaching as an architect at the technical high school of our city.

I am not surprised that they show no intention to follow in my footsteps, although if I had a second chance myself, I would certainly try to repeat my present career.

A brief visit to Nepal started my insatiable love for Asian art.

However, I survived and started to read all chemistry books that I could get a hand on, first some 19th century books from our home library that did not provide much reliable information, and then I emptied the rather extensive city library.

I became almost immediately fascinated by the possibilities of trying out all conceivable reactions with them, some leading to explosions, others to unbearable poisoning of the air in our house, frightening my parents.

In recent years, more and more of my time has become absorbed by administrative work for the research council of ETH-Z of which I am presently the president.

Thus, after finishing high school, I started with high expectations and enthusiasm to study chemistry at the famous Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.

I recognized that teaching and research institutions vitally depend on the involvement of active scientists also in management functions.

On the theoretical side, I was concerned with stochastic resonance.

Experiments were not attempted at that time, we did not believe in the usefulness of the concept anyway, and I finished my thesis in 1962 with a feeling like an artist balancing on a high rope without any interested spectators.

I thus decided to leave the university forever and tried to find an industrial job in the United States.

The key to accepting responsibility for your life is to accept the fact that your choices, every one of them, are leading you inexorably to either success or failure, however you define those terms.

A handful of older, romantic leading men, like Sean Connery, Jack Nicholson, and Robert Redford are still landing parts.

By obtaining a sense of its place in the unfolding drama of life, set in an ecological theatre, so we can understand why it has become one of the leading players.

We live in an ascending scale when we live happily, one thing leading to another in an endless series.

In the little hall leading to it was a rack holding various Socialist or radical newspapers, tracts, and pamphlets in very small print and on very bad paper. The subjects treated were technical Marxist theories.

Bill Clinton strikes me as the kind of guy who goes wherever the polls lead him, rather than leading the polls.

I met Kevin when I was 19, at a Second City workshop. We were paired up together in the first class I went to. By the end of the class we formed our improv group, and over the next three years we performed leading up to the formation of The Kids in the Hall.

The most terrible job in warfare is to be a second lieutenant leading a platoon when you are on the battlefield.

Poor air quality, which can be influenced by a variety of fumes, chemicals and allergens, is arguably the leading cause of triggers for most asthmatics in urban areas.

Young leading cadres have risen up by helicopter. They should really rise step by step.

The Super Bowl is like a movie, and the quarterback is the leading man.

It must inquire not merely about the circumstances of the time in general, but in particular about the writer's position with regard to these things, the interests and motives, the leading ideas of his literary activity.

I'd love to talk to Joaquin Phoenix because he's a very private guy. Also, he's creating a new kind of sexy leading man. To me, his face is new and might be legendary someday.

While a handful of countries and a small number of people are leading ample life, dozens of countries and billions of people in Africa, Asia and Latin America are being left in absolute poverty.

Now, when we face a problem like global warming, and you understand that the biggest impacts on global warming come from business and industry, I think business needs to take a leading role.

Great ambition, the desire of real superiority, of leading and directing, seems to be altogether peculiar to man, and speech is the great instrument of ambition.

Well, let's say we acknowledged the School of French Painting - the Paris School of painting as the leading force and vitality of the time. I think that was understood and felt and experienced.

If you would have your son to walk honourably through the world, you must not attempt to clear the stones from his path, but teach him to walk firmly over them - not insist upon leading him by the hand, but let him learn to go alone.

Such an arrangement would provide Taiwan and China with a forum for dialogue whereby they may forge closer ties based on mutual understanding and respect, leading to permanent peace in the Taiwan Strait.

I shouldn't say I'm looking forward to leading a normal life, because I don't know what normal is.

We're doing a lot of inspection on the leading edge of our wing on 114 and 121, the first two flights.

There's only a step from the sublime to the ridiculous, but there's no road leading from the ridiculous to the sublime.

In cinema, the leading player is the director.

The World War broke out with such elemental violence, and with such resort to all means for leading or misleading public opinion, that no time was available for reflection and consideration.

When I came from horizontal vertical straight all old stuff then suddenly I go also again in curved lines. And there I submit to changes in the intensity of my hand leading a tool, you see.

I have two favorite songs. My first is called 'Dance of The Robe' and it's a very powerful number where she is feeling the pressure from her people to take on the responsibility of leading them.

Each and every master, regardless of the era or the place, heard the call and attained harmony with heaven and earth. There are many paths leading to the top of Mount Fuji, but there is only one summit - love.

I'm talking about science on the leading edge, where it's not clear which way things are going be cause we don't know, and I'm dealing with areas which we don't know about.

Some of my best leading men have been dogs and horses.

We will host the Asean summit in November this year. It will be an occasion to reflect on our achievements collectively and to look at how Asean can maintain its leading role in regional and international cooperation.

Education is the leading of human souls to what is best, and making what is best out of them.

The ladder of success in Hollywood is usually a press agent, actor, director, producer, leading man; and you are a star if you sleep with each of them in that order. Crude, but true.

The good news is that parents are the leading influence on kids' decision not to drink alcohol.

As the 1960s began, a new breed of Hollywood leading lady was emerging. She was elegant, international, and wonderfully comedic.

Some of the supporting roles that I've done as an actor, I took them because I knew that I would get to watch some of the leading guys in the movies, and also I'd get to work with them.