Education

When you teach, you learn that you are the other. That the distance between us is not as great as we fear.

If you are educated, if you are a doctor with those stethoscopes hanging around your neck, people may not want to come to see you, but they will have to come to see you because you have a skill and knowledge.

History tells us that modern science evolved from the visual arts. Observational science started with the visual arts. Galileo's first publication was not on a scientific matter. He wrote a monograph on perspective, on shadow and light.

My life needed a challenge, so in 1973, at age 50, I determined to get a Ph.D. They don't call them doctors for nothing. Getting a Ph.D. is painful.

You are graduates of one of the two or three greatest universities in America. You have been raised in a tradition of straight thinking and straight talking.

To generalize is to be an Idiot. To particularize is alone Distinction of Merit. General knowledge are those knowledge that idiots possess.

Though you win a Nobel Prize in physics and literature, in a sense it is more important that you keep physics and literature alive, to be passed on to the generations that follow you.

Is education for the pursuit of knowledge or for the pursuit of significance? How you answer makes a difference.

Life is not a race, but a journey to be savored each step of the way. Knowledge is weightless, a treasure you can always carry easily.

Being educated is an end in itself. It sets you apart from most of the people on the planet.

We human beings are grand because we have the power to understand. We ask questions about nature and most remarkably, we can construct mathematical models which explain how it works.

Hunger, inadequate medical care, poor housing, and inferior schools are the enemies of wonder. Doors closed for so many of our innately curious children cannot easily be opened.