My main point today is that usually one gets what one expects, but very rarely in the way one expected it.

As seismologists gained more experience from earthquake records, it became obvious that the problem could not be reduced to a single peak acceleration. In fact, a full frequency of vibrations occurs.

Refining is inevitable in science when you have made measurements of a phenomenon for a long period of time.

I have a sense of humor but over the years that sense has developed one blind spot. I can no longer laugh at ignorance or stupidity. Those are our chief enemies, and it is dangerous to make fun of them.

Most loss of life and property has been due to the collapse of antiquated and unsafe structures, mostly of brick and other masonry. ... There is progress of California toward building new construction according to earthquake-resistant design. We would have less reason to ask for earthquake prediction if this was universal.

There is nothing more beautiful than cheerfulness in an old face, and among country people it is always a sign of a well-regulated life.

Remembrance is the only paradise out of which we cannot be driven away.

No joy in nature is so sublimely affecting as the joy of a mother at the good fortune of a child.

Lately there have been complaints that the use of the magnitude scale is confusing, or at least the reporting of magnitudes in the newspapers 'confuses the public.

In every area of the world where there is earthquake risk, there are still many buildings of this type it is very frustrating to try to get rid of them.

I was lucky because logarithmic plots are a device of the devil.

Nothing is less predictable than the development of an active scientific field.

Don't wait for extraordinary circumstance to do good try to use ordinary situations.

[In plotting earthquake measurements] the range between the largest and smallest magnitudes seemed unmanageably large. Dr. Beno Gutenberg then made the natural suggestion to plot the amplitudes logarithmically.