One of the absolute rules I learned in the war was, don't know anything you don't need to know, because if you ever get caught they will get it out of you.

quote by Abraham Pais
Added by Lucian Velea
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The rule of the game was never assume that anybody, however honorable, would be able to stand up under torture. If Mr. X, who knew where I was, was caught for some reason, I should move.

quote by Abraham Pais
Added by Lucian Velea
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Of course, relative citation frequencies are no measure of relative importance. Who has not aspired to write a paper so fundamental that very soon it is known to everyone and cited by no one?

quote by Abraham Pais
Added by Lucian Velea
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Once I even took the train to Utrecht, forty miles from Amsterdam, with my yellow star, this star which I still have. Why did I go? I just wanted to visit some friends. I was a little bit crazy, a little bit insane.

quote by Abraham Pais
Added by Lucian Velea
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One of the things I learned, one of the strangest things, is how to think. There was nothing else to do. I couldn't see people, or go for a walk in the forest. All I had was my head and my books, and I thought a lot.

quote by Abraham Pais
Added by Lucian Velea
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I spent every night until four in the morning on my dissertation, until I came to the point when I could not write another word, not even the next letter. I went to bed. Eight o'clock the next morning I was up writing again.

quote by Abraham Pais
Added by Lucian Velea
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Progress leads to confusion leads to progress and on and on without respite. Every one of the many major advances … created sooner or later, more often sooner, new problems. These confusions, never twice
the same, are not to be deplored. Rather, those who participate experience them as a privilege.

quote by Abraham Pais
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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