Dissent is the native activity of the scientist, and it has got him into a good deal of trouble in the last years. But if that is cut off, what is left will not be a scientist. And I doubt whether it will be a man. – Jacob Bronowski
The world is full of people who never quite get into the first team and who just miss the prizes at the flower show. – Jacob Bronowski
Science has nothing to be ashamed of even in the ruins of Nagasaki. The shame is theirs who appeal to other values than the human imaginative values which science has evolved. – Jacob Bronowski
Who has not hoped
To outrage an enemys dignity?
Who has not been swept
By the wish to hurt?
And who has not thought that the impersonal world
Deserves no better than to be destroyed
By one fabulous sign of his displeasure? – Jacob Bronowski
What I like about sceptics is that in good science you need critics that make you think: Crumbs, have I made a mistake here? If you dont have that continuously, you really are up the creek. The good sceptics have done a good service, but some of the mad ones I think have not done anyone any favours. – James Lovelock
Since Hiroshima and the Holocaust, science no longer holds its pristine place as the highest moral authority. Instead, that role is taken by human rights. It follows that any assault on Jewish life – on Jews or Judaism or the Jewish state – must be cast in the language of human rights. – Jonathan Sacks
Older fatherhood isnt all bad: testosterone rates drop about 1% per year as men age, making them less reactive and more patient, and a professionally established middle-aged man is likely to have more time and money to devote to his kids than a twenty-something whos just getting started. – Jeffrey Kluger