A cardinal American virtue, 'ambition,' promotes a cardinal American vice, 'deviant behavior.

Only when he has published his ideas and findings has the scientist made his contribution, and only when he has thus made it part of the public domain of scholarship can he truly lay claim to it as his own. For his claim resides only in the recognition accorded by peers in the social system of science through reference to his work.

The purely abstract theorist runs the risk that, as with modern decor, the furniture of the mind will be sparse, bare, and uncomfortable.

Most institutions demand unqualified faith but the institution of science makes skepticism a virtue.