At the heart of science is an essential balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes — an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive they may be, and the most ruthless skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense.

Scientific knowledge advances haltingly and is stimulated by contention and doubt.

Creativity is a continual surprise.

Mystery is at the heart of creativity. That, and surprise.

Science is always discovering odd scraps of magical wisdom and making a tremendous fuss about its cleverness.

It is a part of the adventure of science to try to find a limitation in all directions and to stretch the human imagination as far as possible everywhere. Although at every stage it has looked as if such an activity was absurd and useless, it often turns out at least not to be useless.

We must surrender our skepticism only in the face of rock-solid evidence. Science demands a tolerance for ambiguity. Where we are ignorant, we withhold belief. Whatever annoyance the uncertainty engenders serves a higher purpose: It drives us to accumulate better data. This attitude is the difference between science and so much else. Science offers little in the way of cheap thrills. The standards of evidence are strict. But when followed they allow us to see far, illuminating even a great darkness.

There is no harm in doubt and skepticism, for it is through these that new discoveries are made.

Creative thought in science is exactly this - not a mechanical collection on of facts and intuition, bias, and insight from other fields. Science, at its best, interposes human judgement and ingenuity upon all proceedings. It is, after all (although we sometimes forget it), practiced by humans.

To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science.

Science is not a heartless pursuit of objective information; it is a creative human activity.

The spirit of creation is the spirit of contradiction, the breakthrough of appearances toward an unknown reality.

The genius of evolution lies in the dynamic tension between optimism and pessimism continually correcting each other.

You have to systematically create confusion, it sets creativity free. Everything that is contradictory creates life