John B. S. Haldane

And if we must educate our poets and artists in science, we must educate our masters, labour and capital, in art.

An attempt to study the evolution of living organisms without reference to cytology would be as futile as an account of stellar evolution which ignored spectroscopy.

Until politics are a branch of science, we shall do well to regard political and social reforms as experiments rather than short-cuts to the millennium.

A time will however come (as I believe) when physiology will invade and destroy mathematical physics, as the latter has destroyed geometry.

My final word, before I'm done, Is "Cancer can be rather fun"- Provided one confronts the tumour with a sufficient sense of humour. I know that cancer often kills, But so do cars and sleeping pills; And it can hurt till one sweats, So can bad teeth and unpaid debts. A spot of laughter, I am sure, Often accelerates one's cure; So let us patients do our bit To help the surgeons make us fit.

My practise as a scientist is atheistic. That is to say, when I set up an experiment I assume that no god, angel, or devil is going to interfere with its course; and this assumption has been justified by such success as I have achieved in my professional career. I should therefore be intellectually dishonest if I were not also atheistic in the affairs of the world. And I should be a coward if I did not state my theoretical views in public.

It wasn't until I had performed by first autopsy that I realized that even the drabest human exteriors could contain the most beautiful viscera. After that, I would console myself for the plainness of my fellow bus-riders by dissecting them in my imagination.

Haldane was engaged in discussion with an eminent theologian. "What inference," asked the latter, "might one draw about the nature of God from a study of his works?" Haldane replied: "An inordinate fondness for beetles."

There is no great invention, from fire to flying, which has not been hailed as an insult to some god.

My own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.

Teleology is like a mistress to a biologist: he cannot live without her but he's unwilling to be seen with her in public.

A fairly bright boy is far more intelligent and far better company than the average adult.

If one could conclude as to the nature of the Creator from a study of creation it would appear that God has an inordinate fondness for stars and beetles.

So many new ideas are at first strange and horrible though ultimately valuable that a very heavy responsibility rests upon those who would prevent their dissemination.

While I do not suggest that humanity will ever be able to dispense with its martyrs, I cannot avoid the suspicion that with a little more thought and a little less belief their number may be substantially reduced.

It is my supposition that the Universe in not only queerer than we imagine, is queerer than we can imagine.

Science affects the average man and woman in two ways already. He or she benefits by its application driving a motor-car or omnibus instead of a horse-drawn vehicle, being treated for disease by a doctor or surgeon rather than a witch, and being killed with an automatic pistol or shell in place of a dagger or a battle-axe.

The wise man regulates his conduct by the theories both of religion and science. But he regards these theories not as statements of ultimate fact but as art-forms.

The conclusion forced upon me in the course of a life devoted to natural science is that the universe as it is assumed to be in physical science is only an idealized world, while the real universe is the spiritual universe in which spiritual values count for everything.