7 May 2026
I have a friend who's an artist and who sometimes takes a view which I don't agree with very well. He'll hold up a flower and say, 'Look how beautiful it is,' and I'll agree. But then he says, 'I, as an artist, can see how beautiful a flower is. But you, as a scientist, take it all apart and it becomes dull.' I think he's wrong.
The Pleasure of Finding Things Out (BBC interview, 1981)