All Quotes

"Let me backtrack... to the 1920s when quantum mechanics was created. ...[O]ne of the things that the originators of quantum mechanics... were very unhappy about was that quantum mechanics was not compatible with the special theory of relativity. ...Attempts were made to create a theory of the electron that is consistent with relativity, and one person made such a theory, but it was inconsistent with the electron spin. Another person made a theory that was consistent with electron spin, but not consistent with relativity. Until finally... a then young man... Paul Dirac created the theory of an equation that correctly describes the electron, and is relativistic, and also includes the description of spin... [T]hat was the beginning of the marriage that would take place between quantum mechanics and relativity. ...He originally noticed that the equation had too many solutions... He thought the negatively charged solutions would be electrons and the positive charge solutions would be s... He realized that this made no sense and the two things had to have the same , and finally... realized that he was... predicting [the positively charged electron,] the , just shortly before the positron was... independently and serendipitously discovered."

"Dirac, in his first paper, in contrast to what his “hole”-theory implied, had identified the positively charged particle corresponding to the electron also with the proton. However, after Weyl had pointed out that Dirac’s hole theory led to equal masses, he changed his mind and gave the new particle the same mass as the electron."

"Dirac has done more than anyone this century, with the exception of Einstein, to advance physics and change our picture of the universe. He is surely worthy of the memorial in Westminster Abbey. It is just a scandal that it has taken so long."

"Dirac’s relationship with quantum electrodynamics was not an easy one. On the one hand, the theory owes to him much more than to anybody else, especially if one considers the years crucial for its emergence, the late 1920s and early 1930s, when practically all its main concepts, except for that of renormalization, were developed. After this period Dirac also wrote a number of important papers, specifically, on indefinite metrics and quantum dynamics with constraints. On the other hand, since the early 1930s he was an active critic of the theory and tried to develop alternative schemes. He did not become satisfied with the later method of renormalization and regarded it as a mathematical trick rather than a fundamental solution, and died unreconciled with what, to a large extent, was his own brainchild. …"

"In the fight between you and the world, back the world."

"It has been generally believed that only the complex numbers could legitimately be used as the ground field in discussing quantum-mechanical operators. Over the complex field, Frobenius' theorem is of course not valid; the only division algebra over the complex field is formed by the complex numbers themselves. However, Frobenius' theorem is relevant precisely because the appropriate ground field for much of quantum mechanics is real rather than complex."

"I am acutely aware of the fact that the marriage between mathematics and physics, which was so enormously fruitful in past centuries, has recently ended in divorce."

"Thirty-one years ago [1948], Dick Feynman told me about his "sum over histories" version of quantum mechanics. "The electron does anything it likes," he said. "It just goes in any direction at any speed, forward or backward in time, however it likes, and then you add up the amplitudes and it gives you the wave-function." I said to him, "You're crazy." But he wasn't."

"I have felt it myself. The glitter of nuclear weapons. It is irresistible if you come to them as a scientist. To feel it's there in your hands, to release this energy that fuels the stars, to let it do your bidding. To perform these miracles, to lift a million tons of rock into the sky. It is something that gives people an illusion of illimitable power, and it is, in some ways, responsible for all our troubles — this, what you might call technical arrogance, that overcomes people when they see what they can do with their minds."

"As we look out into the Universe and identify the many accidents of physics and astronomy that have worked together to our benefit, it almost seems as if the Universe must in some sense have known that we were coming."

"Keenan Wynn - Sheriff"

"Frank Wolff - Brett McBain"

"Lionel Stander - Barman"

"Al Mulock - Knuckles (final film role)"

"[Harmonica's brother stands on his shoulders with a rope around his neck, Frank puts a harmonica in his mouth] Keep your lovin' brother happy."

"How can you trust a man who wears both a belt and suspenders? The man can't even trust his own pants."

"Do you know anything about a guy going around playing the harmonica? He's someone you'd remember. Instead of talking, he plays. And when he better play, he talks."

"You don't understand, Jill. People like that have something inside... something to do with death."

"They wanna hang me. The big, black crows. Idiots. What the hell? I'll kill anything. Never a kid. Be like killin' a priest. Catholic priest, that is."

"Hey, Harmonica - when they do you in, pray it's somebody who knows where to shoot... Go away... go away... go away, I don't want you to see me die."

"Henry Fonda - Frank"

"Charles Bronson - Harmonica"

"Claudia Cardinale - Jill McBain"

"Jason Robards - Cheyenne"

"Gabriele Ferzetti - Morton"

"Paolo Stoppa - Sam"

"Woody Strode - Stony"

"Jack Elam - Snaky"

"Clint Eastwood as Joe, the Stranger (the "Man with No Name")"

"Bernie Grant as Ramón Rojo, Esteban Rojo, Sheriff John Baxter, and additional voices"

"Ray Owens as Chico, Rojo Gang Member and Juan de Dios, The Bell Ringer"

"Child of mortality, whence comest thou? Why is thy countenance sad, and why are thine eyes red with weeping?"

"Man is the nobler growth our realms supply, And souls are ripen'd in our northern sky."

"O gently guide my pilgrim feet To find thy hermit cell; Where in some pure and equal sky Beneath thy soft indulgent eye The modest virtues dwell."

"It is to hope, tho' hope were lost."

"Flowers, the sole luxury which nature knew, In Eden's pure and guiltless garden grew.[…] Gay without toil, and lovely without art, They spring to cheer the sense, and glad the heart."

"I read his awful name, emblazon'd high With golden letters on th' illumin'd sky."

"With Thee in shady solitudes I walk, With Thee in busy, crowded cities talk, In every creature own Thy forming power, In each event Thy providence adore."

"This dead of midnight is the noon of thought, And Wisdom mounts her zenith with the stars."

"Oh! hear a pensive captive's prayer, For liberty that sighs; And never let thine heart be shut Against the prisoner's cries."

"If e'er thy breast with freedom glow'd, And spurn'd a tyrant's chain, Let not thy strong oppressive force A free-born mouse detain."

"The cheerful light, the vital air, Are blessings widely given; Let nature's commoners enjoy The common gifts of heaven.The well-taught philosophic mind To all compassion gives; Casts round the world an equal eye, And feels for all that lives.If mind, as ancient sages taught, A never dying flame, Still shifts thro' matter's varying forms, In every form the same, Beware, lest in the worm you crush A brother's soul you find; And tremble lest thy luckless hand Dislodge a kindred mind."

"So when destruction lurks unseen, Which men like mice may share, May some kind angel clear thy path, And break the hidden snare."

"Life! we've been long together, Through pleasant and through cloudy weather; 'Tis hard to part when friends are dear,;br>Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh, a tear; Then steal away, give little warning, Choose thine own time; Say not Good night, but in some brighter clime Bid me Good morning."

"So fades a summer cloud away; So sinks the gale when storms are o’er; So gently shuts the eye of day; So dies a wave along the shore."

"It would be difficult to determine whether the age is growing better or worse; for I think our plays are growing like sermons, and our sermons like plays."

"If an author would have us feel a strong degree of compassion, his characters must not be too perfect."

"We may think all religions beneficial, and believe of one alone that it is true."

"It is, in truth, the most absurd of all suppositions, that a human being can be educated, or even nourished and brought up, without imbibing numberless prejudices from every thing which passes around him."

"Let us confess a truth, humiliating perhaps to human pride;—a very small part only of the opinions of the coolest philosopher are the result of fair reasoning; the rest are formed by his education, his temperament, by the age in which he lives, by trains of thought directed to a particular track through some accidental association—in short, by prejudice."