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“In 1963, when I assigned the name ‘quark’ to the fundamental constituents of the nucleon, I had the sound first, without the spelling, which could have been ‘kwork’.”

“The universe consists only of atoms and the void; all else is opinion and illusion.”

“When some portion of the biosphere is rather unpopular with the human race [...] there are three sorts of human being who are particularly likely still to see point in it and befriend it.”

“Nature’s economy shall be the base for our own, for it is immutable, but ours is secondary.”

“Ecological differentiation is the necessary condition for coexistence.”

“Science, history and politics are not suited for discussion except by experts.”

“Rejoice when other scientists do not believe what you know to be true. It will give you extra time to work on it in peace.”

“A scientist strives to understand the work of Nature. But with our insufficient talents as scientists, we do not hit upon the truth all at once.”

“People without independence have no business to meddle with science. It should never be linked with lucre.”

“Physical concepts are free creations of the human mind, and are not, however it may seem, uniquely determined by the external world.”

“Cell and tissue, shell and bone, leaf and flower, are so many portions of matter, and it is in obedience to the laws of physics that their particles have been moved, moulded and confirmed.”

Nature goes her own way, and all that to us seems an exception is really according to order.

“Every species of plant is a law unto itself.”

Emil Hermann Fischer (1852–1919) was a chemist. He received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1902.

Scientific ideas are mathematical in form.