"Unsolved problems on the inside of a person stop success more often than problems on the outside of a person."

“Well I'm a 5 year old at heart; I still think that there is a monster under my bed - and I'm not joking. It's pathetic, it's really not cute.”

“It is an astonishing thing that historians will look back and puzzle over, that in the 21st century, American women were such hunted creatures. Even as Republicans try to wrestle women into chastity belts, the Vatican is trying to muzzle American nuns.”

“Apart from God nothing matters. We think that health matters, that freedom matters, or knowledge or art or civilization. And but for one insistent word they would matter indeed. That word is eternity.”

“There are no shortcuts. Be patient and look long-term. It's a foolish idea that if you do a little more, faster, then you'll get better than the rest. It ignores the fact that you must train at your optimal level, not your maximum level. Consistency is the secret to improvement and success. You have to keep training when others lose interest.”

“I am a Communist, a convinced Communist! For some that may be a fantasy. But to me it is my main goal.”

“I looked for it [heavy hydrogen, deuterium] because I thought it should exist. I didn't know it would have industrial applications or be the basic for the most powerful weapon ever known [the nuclear bomb] ... I thought maybe my discovery might have the practical value of, say, neon in neon signs.”

“Talent imitates, but genius steals.”

“From any vocabulary of ideas we can build other ideas by formal combinations of signs. But not any set of ideas will be instructive. One must have the right ideas.”

Source : Ian Hacking (2006). “The Emergence of Probability: A Philosophical Study of Early Ideas about Probability, Induction and Statistical Inference”, p.139, Cambridge University Press