He did know the difference between memorizing and understanding, and did not give up on a topic until he understood it clearly.

Time is the tyrant. One cannot be loyal to two occupations any more than one can to two lovers. Whenever I found that one of my hobbies was seriously taking attention from my research, I dropped it. That happened to chess, and then painting, in the late 1950s. In both cases, I found that I was aspiring to professional competence, which obviously wo

Bracketing satisficing with Darwinian may appear contradictory, for evolutionists sometimes talk about survival of the fittest. But in fact, natural selection only predicts that survivors will be fit enough, that is, fitter than their losing competitors; it postulates satisficing, not optimizing.

There has been no definable boundary between the sociability of work and of leisure.

It would seem to me that every scientist would have to think so, for the whole purpose of science is to find meaningful simplicity in the midst of disorderly complexity.

It helped me understand that new ideas do not fly solely on their own wings; the scientist is a communicator as well as a discoverer—sometimes even a missionary.

had only one reservation: He seemed to enjoy power too much, a worrisome trait in a leader. (Leaders should exercise power, but enjoying it is another, and more dangerous, matter.)

Interdisciplinary adventure is easiest in new fields.

You start every class by giving students the opportunity (or better, the obligation) to ask questions about their reading, about previous sessions, or about anything. You take each question seriously, and answer it without making a jackass of the student who asked it (no matter how foolish the question).