Quotes from Walter Isaacson

What would have happened if Franklin had, in fact, received a formal academic education and gone to Harvard? Some historians such as Arthur Tourtellot argue that he would have been stripped of his "spontaneity," "intuitive" literary style, "zest," "freshness," and the "unclutteredness" of his mind. And indeed, Harvard has been known to

These proteins come in many types. Fibrous proteins, for example, form structures such as bones, tissues, muscles, hair, fingernails, tendons, and skin cells. Membrane proteins relay signals within cells. Above all is the most fascinating type of proteins: enzymes. They serve as catalysts. They spark and accelerate and modulate the chemical reactions in all living things. Almost every action that takes place in a cell needs to be catalyzed by an enzyme. Pay attention to enzymes

Even a genius like Schopenhauer was crushed by unemployment," he wrote. "Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving."30 Eduard

Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the discernible laws and connections, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion. To that extent I am, in fact, religious.

some forms of RNA could likewise be enzymes. Specifically, they found that some RNA molecules can split themselves by sparking a chemical reaction. They dubbed these catalytic RNAs "ribozymes

Gocemos del Papado, ya que Dios nos lo ha concedido

He combined two types of lenses to create bifocals and two concepts of representation to foster the nation's federal compromise.

Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead.

is an amazing revelation for those who are interested in uncovering the fundamental secrets of life. It is the way that chemistry—the study of how atoms bond to create molecules—becomes biology.

When nature gave us tears, she gave us leave to weep.

Einstein creía que existía una realidad armónica tras las leyes del universo y que el objetivo de la ciencia era descubrirla.

At the official signing of the parchment copy on August 2, John Hancock, the president of the Congress, penned his name with his famous flourish. There must be no pulling different ways, he declared. We must all hang together. According to the early American historian Jared Sparks, Franklin replied, Yes, we must, indeed, all hang together or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.

two historic innovations that caused them to revolutionize how we live: microchips allowed computers to become small enough to be personal appliances, and packet-switched networks allowed them to be connected as nodes on a web.

Franklin would find himself more attracted to people who were practical and reliable rather than dreamy and romantic.

So Germany in the 1920s was not a good place or time to be an internationalist, pacifist, intellectual Jew.

und die lieben Züricher können mich auch…

Innovation often happens in garages and dorm rooms, but it is sustained by institutions

The cult of individual personalities is always, in my view, unjustified . . . It strikes me as unfair, and even in bad taste, to select a few for boundless admiration, attributing superhuman powers of mind and character to them.

the time than they do in retrospect, and they show a love of design that was, on occasion, a bit too exuberant. But they set Apple apart and provided the publicity bursts

Would you cure your own child from being schizophrenic if you knew that, if you didn't, he would become a Vincent van Gogh and transform the world of art? (Don't forget: Van Gogh committed suicide.

When nature gave us tears, she gave us leave to weep."34

press or to Congressional committees. Thus the only way secrecy can be kept is to exclude from the making of the decision all those who

Willkie's dedication to private ownership merited praise for its uniqueness, said the magazine. "He knows all the arguments. They are persuasive… not because they are new, but because he frames them intelligently, and hence he makes them sound new.

Also during the crossing, his ship narrowly avoided being wrecked on the Scilly Isles when it sought to evade French privateers in the fog. Franklin described his grateful reaction in a letter home to his wife. "Were I a Roman Catholic, perhaps I should on this occasion vow to build a chapel to some saint," he wrote. "But as I am not, if I were to vow at all, it should be to build a lighthouse.