The nightmare thought is that frightening people is the best way to get work out of them, and that somehow the crueler the environment, the more people will rise to the challenge. You want to think, who would you like as your ideal dad? And your ideal dad is somebody who is tough but gentle. And it's a very hard line to make. We need fathers, as it were, the exemplary father figures in society, avoiding the two extremes, which is the authoritarian disciplinarian on the one hand, and on the other, the lax, no-rules option.

The computer is simply an instrument whose music is ideas.

A fisherman’s wisdom is as valuable as any scientist’s data.

The language of mathematics is universal, and it is through this language that we can communicate the most profound truths of the universe.

应对不自由世界的唯一方法是变得如此绝对自由，以至于你的存在本身就是一种反叛。