No amount of study of present forms [of life] would permit us to infer [the existence of] dinosaurs

- Max Delbruck

If you're too sloppy, then you never get reproducible results, then you never get reproducible results, and then you never can draw any conclusions; …

- Max Delbruck

Any living cell carries with it the experience of a billion years of experimentation by its ancestors.

- Max Delbruck

A strong feeling of adventure is animating those who are working on bacterial viruses, a feeling that they have a small part in the great drive towar…

- Max Delbruck

[Physicists] feel that the field of bacterial viruses is a fine playground for serious children who ask ambitious questions.

- Max Delbruck

The progress of science is tremendously disorderly, and the motivations that lead to this progress are tremendously varied, and the reasons why scien…

- Max Delbruck

The particular thing about science is to combine that [the dreams of obtaining power] with a retreat from the world. Other people want to obtain powe…

- Max Delbruck

Molecular genetics, our latest wonder, has taught us to spell out the connectivity of the tree of life in such palpable detail that we may say in pla…

- Max Delbruck

The whole business was like a child's toy that you could buy at the dime store, all built in this wonderful way that you could explain in Life magazi…

- Max Delbruck