“If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.”

“I am not more gifted than anybody else. I am just more curious than the average person and I will not give up a problem until I have found the proper solution.”

“One had to cram all this stuff into one's mind for the examinations, whether one liked it or not. This coercion had such a deterring effect on me that, after I had passed the final examination, I found the consideration of any scientific problems distasteful to me for an entire year.”

“What really interests me is whether God had any choice in the creation of the World.”

“The tendencies we have mentioned are something new for America. They arose when, under the influence of the two World Wars and the consequent concentration of all forces on a military goal, a predominantly military mentality developed, which with the almost sudden victory became even more accentuated. The characteristic feature of this mentality is that people place the importance of what Bertrand Russell so tellingly terms “naked power” far above all other factors which affect the relations between peoples. The Germans, misled by Bismarck’s successes in particular, underwent just such a transformation of their mentality—in consequence of which they were entirely ruined in less than a hundred years. I must frankly confess that the foreign policy of the United States since the termination of hostilities has reminded me, sometimes irresistibly, of the attitude of Germany under Kaiser Wilhelm II, and I know that, independent of me, this analogy has most painfully occurred to others as well. It is characteristic of the military mentality that non-human factors (atom bombs, strategic bases, weapons of all sorts, the possession of raw materials, etc.) are held essential, while the human being, his desires and thoughts—in short, the psychological factors—are considered as unimportant and secondary. Herein lies a certain resemblance to Marxism, at least insofar as its theoretical side alone is kept in view. The individual is degraded to a mere instrument; he becomes “human materiel.” The normal ends of human aspiration vanish with such a viewpoint. Instead, the military mentality raises “naked power” as a goal in itself—one of the strangest illusions to which men can succumb.”

“Earth is the insane asylum of the universe.”

“Do you really believe that the moon isn’t there when nobody looks?”

“Evil is the absence of God.”

“In two weeks the sheeplike masses of any country can be worked up by the newspapers into such a state of excited fury that men are prepared to put on uniforms and kill and be killed, for the sake of the sordid ends of a few interested parties.”

“Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions.”

“I thought of that while riding my bicycle.”

“The perfection of means and the confusion of ends seems to be our problem.”

“Berusahalah untuk tidak menjadi manusia yang berhasil tapi berusahalah menjadi manusia yang berguna”

“The formulation of the problem is often more essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skill.”

“Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.”