My Small Boat

The Cow
The cow is of the bovine ilk;
One end is moo, the other, milk.

Results! Why man, I have gotten a lot of results. I know several thousand things that won’t work.

“Life is strange” said Jeremy”. “Compared with what?” replied the spider.

I am sure that one cannot love life enough; but I believe, too, one mustn’t confuse love of life with love of certain things in it. One cannot pick the moment and the place as one pleases and say “Enough! This is all I want. This is how it is henceforth to be.” […]

We’re fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance.

He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice.

The Nativity
Among the oxen (like an ox I’m slow)
I see a glory in the stable grow
Which, with the ox’s dullness might at length
Give me an ox’s strength.
Among the asses (stubborn I as they)
I see my Saviour where I looked for hay;
So may my beastlike folly learn at least
The patience of a beast.
Among the sheep (I […]

The first thing I remember about the world…is that I was a stranger in it. This feeling, which is at once the glory and desolation of homo sapiens, provides the only thread of consistency that I can detect in my life.

If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell’s equations, then so much the worse for Maxwell’s equations. And if your theory contradicts the facts, well, sometimes these experimentalists make mistakes. But if your theory is found to be against the Second Law of Thermodynamics, I […]

A physicist is an atom’s way of knowing about atoms.

Trees
I think that I shall never see
A poem as lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately […]

Progress isn’t made by early risers. It’s made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something.