Francis Crick

Our work on DNA was like finding the Rosetta Stone of life.

Biology is the only science in which the word 'theory' is still used to mean 'hypothesis'.

An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only say that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going.

The most important thing to realize about science is that it is not a collection of facts, but a way of thinking.

It is notoriously difficult to get a new idea into science, but it is even more difficult to get an old one out.

The human brain has 100 billion neurons, each connected to 10,000 other neurons. We are more complex than the entire universe.

The great thing about science is that it doesn't matter how old you are, you can still make a discovery.

The brain is a three-pound universe.

The central dogma of molecular biology is that information flows from DNA to RNA to protein, but never the other way around. Unless, of course, you're a retrovirus.

The more you know, the more you realize you don't know.

The ultimate goal of science is not to solve all problems, but to understand them.

If you want to be a scientist, you have to be prepared to be wrong a lot.

The brain is the most complex object in the known universe. And we're trying to understand it with the brain.

The genetic code is a frozen accident.

The more we learn about the brain, the more we realize how much we don't know.

The ultimate aim of science is to make the world a better place. Or at least, to understand why it isn't.

The brain is a machine that makes us think we're not machines.

The only way to do great work is to love what you do. Or at least, to pretend you do.

The genetic code is a universal language. Except for a few dialects.

The more you know, the more you realize how little you know. Unless you're a politician.