In the first place, the preparation of the Nobel lecture which I am to give has shown me, even more clearly than I knew before, how many others share with me, often, indeed, have anticipated...

To-day it appears as though it may well be altogether abolished in the future as it has to some extent been mitigated in the past by the unceasing, and as it now appears, unlimited ascent...

It is curious to reflect, for example, upon the remarkable legend of the Philosopher’s Stone, one of the oldest and most universal beliefs, the origin of which, however far back we penetrate into the records...

With all our mastery over the powers of Nature we have adhered to the view that the struggle for existence is a permanent and necessary condition of life.

Man cannot influence in this respect the atomic forces of Nature.

Nature is in austere mood, even terrifying, withal majestically beautiful.

Now whatever the origin of this apparently meaningless jumble of ideas may have been, it is really a perfect and very slightly allegorical expression of the actual present views we hold today.

It is a curious thought that the earliest description of the steam-engine in antiquity describes its use for the magic opening of the temple doors, when the priests lit the fires on the altars, to...

On our plane knowledge and ignorance are the immemorial adversaries.

The ruling passion of the age is to convert wealth into debt in order toderive a permanent future income from it – to convert wealth that perishesinto debt that endures, debt that does not rot,...

Scientific men can hardly escape the charge of ignorance with regard to the precise effect of the impact of modern science upon the mode of living of the people and upon their civilisation.

Debts are subject to the laws of mathematics rather than physics. Unlike wealth, which is subject to the laws of thermodynamics, debts do not rot with old age and are not consumed in the process...

The pure air and dazzling snow belong to things beyond the reach of all personal feeling, almost beyond the reach of life. Yet such things are a part of our life, neither the least noble...

An honest money system is the only alternative.

The whole profit of the issuance of money has provided the capital of the great banking business as it exists today.

But what sin is to the moralist and crime to the jurist so to the scientific man is ignorance.

There is nothing left now for us but to get ever deeper and deeper into debt to the banking system in order to provide the increasing amounts of money the nation requires for its expansion...

Chemistry has been termed by the physicist as the messy part of physics, but that is no reason why the physicists should be permitted to make a mess of chemistry when they invade it.

There is something sublime about its aloofness from and its indifference to its external environment.