Quotes from Walter Isaacson

people are more likely to admire your work if you're able to keep them from feeling jealous of you.6

It was important to avoid attachment to material objects. Our consumer desires are unhealthy.

Initiates were required to stand, lay their hand on their breast, and answer properly four questions: Do you have disrespect for any current member? Do you love mankind in general regardless of religion or profession? Do you feel people should ever be punished because of their opinions or mode of worship? Do you love and pursue truth for its own sake? Franklin

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." Franklin always took pride in his instinct for practical solutions, but that too would fail him in England.2 Franklin's return to London at age 51 came almost thirt

FEW LEADERS ARE MEN FOR ALL SEASONS. THE QUALITIES THAT DEFINE an effective leader in one circumstance may be useless or even mischievous in another.

regard for reason and nature, its social consciousness, its progressivism, its tolerance, its cosmopolitanism, and its bland philanthropy." He

According to the assumption to be considered here, when a light ray is propagated from a point, the energy is not continuously distributed over an increasing space but consists of a finite number of energy quanta which are localized at points in space and which can be produced and absorbed only as complete units.

La esperanza es que, dentro de no muchos años, el cerebro humano y las máquinas computadoras estén unidos de un modo muy estrecho —escribió—, y que la asociación resultante piense como ningún cerebro humano lo haya hecho jamás y procese datos de un modo nunca atisbado por las máquinas de gestión de la información que conocemos hoy.

Of all the people I have met, I like the Japanese most, as they are modest, intelligent, considerate, and have a feel for art

Ah, that picture, it will always haunt me," he says, then pauses and smiles his impish grin. "But she never figured out it was a helix."1

The Japanese people struck him as gentle and unpretentious, with a deep appreciation for beauty and ideas. "Of all the people I have met, I like the Japanese most, as they are modest, intelligent, considerate, and have a feel for art

Subtle is the Lord, but malicious he is not.

Two events which, viewed from a system of coordinates, are simultaneous, can no longer be looked upon as simultaneous events when envisaged from a system which is in motion relative to that system.

Leaders aren't just the few famous people who dominate the news or find their place in history books. They don't always represent the majority. They aren't always popular. They don't always win, and they aren't always remembered. Leaders such as Pauli Murray, brave and obscure men and women who act on their convictions even though they fail time and time again, sometimes change the course of history.

Nature hides her secret because of her essential loftiness, but not by means of ruse.

My heart says yes, but my reason says no.

Eisenhower instinctively felt that the gossamer tissue of personal relationships counted for far more than the formal architecture of his table of organization in determining the success or failure of his command. "The problem of establishing unity in any allied command," he explained to Lord Louis Mountbatten, "involves the human equation.

phages," which was short for "bacteriophages," meaning bacteria-eaters.

I discovered that nature was constructed in a wonderful way, and our task is to find out the mathematical structure of the nature itself

Almost from the beginning of life on this planet, there's been an intense arms race between bacteria, which developed elaborate methods of defending against viruses, and the ever-evolving viruses, which sought ways to thwart those defenses.

The resulting four-page paper, published in May 1935 and known by the initials of its authors as the EPR paper, was the most important paper Einstein would write after moving to America. "Can the Quantum-Mechanical Description of Physical Reality Be Regarded as Complete?" they asked in their title.

Franklin and, by extension, the Junto were particularly fond of things that could help the public as well as themselves.

No sean tan severos conmigo —les respondió a los Born—. Todo el mundo debe, de vez en cuando, hacer un sacrificio ante el altar de la estupidez, a fin de agradar al dios de la humanidad. Y yo lo he hecho a fondo con mi artículo.

the best way to serve God was doing good to others.