Monsters Exist, But They Are Too Few

For Me Chemistry Represented An Indefinite Cloud Of Future Potentialities Which Enveloped My Life To Come In Black Volutes Torn By Fiery Flashes, Like Those Which Had Hidden Mount Sinai. Like Moses, From That Cloud I Expected My Law, The Principle Of Order In Me, Around Me, And In The World... I Would Watch The Buds Swell In Spring, The Mica Glint In The Granite, My Own Hands, And I Would Say To Myself: "i Will Understand This, Too, I Will Understand Everything.

Conquering Matter Is To Understand It, And Understanding Matter Is Necessary To Understanding The Universe And Ourselves: And That Therefore Mendeleev's Periodic Table, Which Just During Those Weeks We Were Learning To Unravel, Was Poetry.

I Am Not Even Alive Enough To Know How To Kill Myself

The Bond Between A Man And His Profession Is Similar To That Which Ties Him To His Country; It Is Just As Complex, Often Ambivalent, And In General It Is Understood Completely Only When It Is Broken: By Exile Or Emigration In The Case Of One's Country, By Retirement In The Case Of A Trade Or Profession.

Our Ignorance Allowed Us To Live, As You Are In The Mountains, And Your Rope Is Frayed And About To Break, But You Don't Know It And Feel Safe.