Quotes from Charles H. Townes

I was very eager to produce an oscillator for short waves. I was doing science with microwaves, and I would get down to a few millimetres in wavelength, but I wanted to get shorter wavelengths; I wanted to get into the infra-red because I saw there was a lot more to be done there.

We can't avoid age. However, we can avoid some aging. Continue to do things. Be active. Life is fantastic in the way it adjusts to demands; if you use your muscles and mind, they stay there much longer.

Science is exploration. The fundamental nature of exploration is that we don't know what's there. We can guess and hope and aim to find out certain things, but we have to expect surprises.

There is some truth to the idea that, in the fields of science, individual contributions of great significance are possible.

It was strange, in a way, because there were no ideas involved in the laser that weren't already known by somebody 25 years before lasers were discovered. The ideas were all there; just, nobody put it together.

Alfred Nobel really understood very well the necessary supra-natural character of the human enterprise.

The imposing edifice of science provides a challenging view of what can be achieved by the accumulation of many small efforts in a steady objective and dedicated search for truth.

One of the things my family taught me - I think very important in religion and science - is that you must be ready to stand up for what you think. Decide what you really think is best, and stick with it.

I was brought up as Christian, and while my ideas have changed, I have always felt myself religiously oriented.

Science has faith. We make postulates. We can't prove those postulates, but we have faith in them.