There is no democracy in physics. We can't say that some second-rate guy has as much right to opinion as Fermi.

- Luis Walter Alvarez

[My father] advised me to sit every few months in my reading chair for an entire evening, close my eyes and try to think of new problems to solve. I …

- Luis Walter Alvarez

I don't like to say bad things about paleontologists, but they're not very good scientists. They're more like stamp collectors.

- Luis Walter Alvarez

The last few centuries have seen the world freed from several scourges-slavery, for example; death by torture for heretics; and, most recently, small…

- Luis Walter Alvarez

Dirac politely refused Robert's [Robert Oppenheimer] two proffered books: reading books, the Cambridge theoretician announced gravely, "interfered wi…

- Luis Walter Alvarez

I'm convinced that a controlled disrespect for authority is essential to a scientist. All the good experimental physicists I have known have had an i…

- Luis Walter Alvarez

Most of us who become experimental physicists do so for two reasons; we love the tools of physics because to us they have intrinsic beauty, and we dr…

- Luis Walter Alvarez