Leon M. Lederman

"I went into physics to hang around with the bright kids. I wasn't doing anything else and I didn't want to look dumb, so I thought I'd pretend to be a physicist, just like the others. It was five or t…"

"Particle physics suffers more from being infected by the socio-political mood of the day than from lack of spectacular opportunities for major and profound discoveries."

"That's the eureka moment, when suddenly you know something. Your hands sweat, you get into all kinds of symptoms of tremendous excitement. First of all, it's fear. Is it right? And it's incredible hum…"

"We are honored for research which is today referred to as the "Two Neutrino Experiment". How does one make this research comprehensible to ordinary people? In fact "The Two Neutrinos" sounds like an I…"

"... I said I am doing experiments on pions. Einstein said, "Pions! Pions! We don't understand the electron. Why do you bother with pions? ..."

"The main virtue of the physics-chemistry-biology sequence is the hierarchical nature of the sciences. Physics comes first because it serves as a powerul prerequisite for chemistry and because it can m…"

"Science is not about status quo. It’s about revolution."

"Are we making more mistakes now? I don't think so. Science is a high-risk activity. And when you do science—this is very important incidentally for the general public, and for policy makers—if you are…"