We used to think that if we knew one, we knew two, because one and one are two. We are finding that we must learn a great deal more about 'and'.

It is also a good rule not to put overmuch confidence in the observational results that are put forward until they are confirmed by theory.

Shuffling is the only thing which Nature cannot undo.

It is one thing for the human mind to extract from the phenomena of nature the laws which it has itself put into them; it may be a far harder thing to extract laws over which it has no control.

The tendency of modern scientific teaching is to neglect the great books, to lay far too much stress upon relatively unimportant modern work, and to present masses of detail of doubtful truth and questionable weight in such a way as to obscure principles.

There can sometimes be this fear among laypeople: 'I don't understand everything in science perfectly, so I just can't say anything about it.' I think it's good to know that we scientists are also confused some of the time.

I think what's always been interesting to me than the science and the criminality with this job is what happens to your persona, your disposition, after day in and day out dealing with life and death.

If you take Darwinian theory, make a 'scientific' principle out of it, put it into political action, then you have something like Nazi Germany.