The Making of a Computer Scientist.

It is the mark of a good scientist to have the courage to question his own conclusions.

An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents. What does happen is that its opponents gradually die out, and that the growing generation is familiarized with the ideas from the beginning.

Scientists have proven that it’s impossible to long-jump 30 feet, but I don’t listen to that kind of talk. Thoughts like that have a way of sinking into your feet.

The metaphysician reasons deductively out of his own subjectivity. The scientist reasons inductively from the facts of experience.

The metaphysician reasons deductively out of his own subjectivity. The scientist reasons inductively from the facts of experience. The metaphysician reasons from theory to facts, the scientist reasons from facts to theory. The metaphysician explains the universe by himself, the scientist explains himself by the universe.

Scientists aren’t responsible for the facts that are in nature. . . . If anyone should have a sense of sin, it’s God. He put the facts there.

I don’t know… a regular scientist just was no one

When I was a kid I always wanted to be a mad scientist. I don’t know… a regular scientist just was no one.

To the scientist, there is the joy in pursuing truth which nearly counteracts the depressing revelations of truth.

I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy.

The best scientist is open to experience and begins with romance – the idea that anything is possible.

Touch a scientist and you touch a child.

See first, think later, then test. But always see first. Otherwise you will only see what you were expecting. Most scientists forget that.

Who is more humble? The scientist who looks at the universe with an open mind and accepts whatever the universe has to teach us, or somebody who says everything in this book must be considered the literal truth and never mind the fallibility of all the human beings involved?

A scientist in his laboratory is not a mere technician: he is also a child confronting natural phenomena that impress him as though they were fairy tales.

There is nothing more wonderful than being a scientist, nowhere I would rather be than in my lab, staining up my clothes and getting paid to play.

If the only time you think of me as a scientist is during Black History Month, then I must not be doing my job as a scientist.

If you’re a scientist, and you have to have an answer, even in the absence of data, you’re not going to be a good scientist.

A scientist is just a kid who never grew up.

A mineral that gives off heat and stimulates the organ that a scientist is a fool with

I am not a scientist, but I don’t need to be.