“Play is the highest form of research.”

“Imagination is the highest form of research.”

“Morality is of the highest importance -- but for us, not for God.”

“If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?”

“I maintain that the cosmic religious feeling is the strongest and noblest motive for scientific research.”

“I assert that the cosmic religious experience is the strongest and the noblest driving force behind scientific research.”

“The finest emotion of which we are capable is the mystic emotion. Herein lies the germ of all art and all true science. Anyone to whom this feeling is alien, who is no longer capable of wonderment and lives in a state of fear is a dead man. To know that what is impenetrable for us really exists and manifests itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, whose gross forms alone are intelligible to our poor faculties – this knowledge, this feeling … that is the core of the true religious sentiment. In this sense, and in this sense alone, I rank myself among profoundly religious men.”