"In ancient times there was no public education, except that of the forum, the theater, and the street, and the general degree of illiteracy was very high. ...the early men of science were left very much to themselves and such a phrase as "the scientific culture of Alexandria in the third century B.C." does not cover any reality. In a sense, this is still true today; the real pioneers are so far ahead of the crowd that they remain almost alone..."

“Erudition without pedantry is as a rare as wisdom itself.”

“A deed happens in a definite place at a definite time, but if it be sufficiently great and pregnant, its virtue radiates everywhere in time and space.”

“It is childish to assume that science began in Greece; the Greek "miracle" was prepared by millenia of work in Egypt, Mesopotamia and possibly in other regions. Greek science was less an invention than a revival.”

“The ability of nonintelligent people to understand the most complicated mechanisms and to use them has always been to me a cause of astonishment: their inability to understand simple questions is even more astonishing. The general acceptance of simple ideas is difficult and rare, and yet it is only when simple, fundamental, ideas have been accepted that further progress becomes possible on a higher level.”

“… science is the most revolutionary force in the world.”

“The scientific books written in Arabic durng the Middle Ages were, for a few centuries, the main vehicle of the living science.”