But mere thinking cannot give us a sense of the ultimate and fundamental ends. To make clear these fundamental ends and valuations, and to set them fast in the emotional life of the individual, seems to me precisely the most important function which religion has to perform in the social life of man. And if one asks whence derives the authority of such fundamental ends, since they cannot be stated and justified merely by reason, one can only answer: they exist in a healthy society as powerful traditions, which act upon the conduct and aspirations and judgments of the individuals; they are there, that is, as something living, without its being necessary to find justification for their existence. They come into being not through demonstration but through revelation, through the medium of powerful personalities.

Every serious scientific worker is painfully conscious of this involuntary relegation to an ever-narrowing sphere of knowledge, which threatens to deprive the investigator of his broad horizon and degrades him to the level of a mechanic.

Science is an attempt to make the chaotic diversity of our sense-experience correspond to a logically uniform system of thought.

We scientists, whose tragic destination has been to help in making the methods of annihilation more gruesome and more effective, must consider it our solemn and transcendent duty to do all in our power in preventing these weapons from being used for the brutal purpose for which they were invented.

I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for everyone, best for both the body and the mind.

Is it not a terrible thing to be forced by society to do things which all of us as individuals regard as abominable crimes?

If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.

Man like every other animal is by nature indolent. If nothing spurs him on, then he will hardly think, and will behave from habit like an automaton.

A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy?

We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.