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To have success in science, you need some luck.
But to succeed in science, you need a lot more than luck.

— James D. Watson Succeeding in Science: Some Rules of Thumb (1993)

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More quotes by James D. Watson

There is only one science, physics: everything else is social work.

Lifelines (1997)

I just can’t sit while people are saying nonsense in a meeting without saying it’s nonsense.

I find such a moralistic response to be profoundly immoral.

DNA: The Story of the Genetic Revolution (2003)

The thought that some people are innately wicked disturbs me.

To question genetic intelligence is not racism (2007)

Science Ph.D. students have effectively become serfs.

All James D. Watson quotes →

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We spend our lives fighting to get people very slightly more stupid than ourselves to accept truths that the great men have always known.

Doris Lessing The Golden Notebook (1962)

To rank the effort above the prize may be called love.

Confucius

Greatness by nature includes a power, but not a will to power.

Martin Buber Between Man and Man (1965)

The weak shows his strength and hides his weaknesses; the magnificent exhibits his weaknesses like ornaments.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: James D. Watson (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.