54 Quotes by Charles Francis Richter

The most remarkable feature about the magnitude scale was that it worked at all and that it could be extended on a worldwide basis. It was originally envisaged as a rather rough-and-ready procedure by which we could grade earthquakes. We would have been happy if we could have assigned just three categories, large, medium, and small; the point is, we wanted to avoid personal judgments. It actually turned out to be quite a finely tuned scale.

The laboratory routine, which involves a great deal of measurement, filing, and tabulation, is either my lifeline or my chief handicap, I hardly know which.

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

According to Democritus, truth lies at the bottom of a well, the water of which serves as a mirror in which objects may be reflected. I have heard, however, that some philosophers, in seeking for truth, to pay homage to her, have seen their own image and adored it instead.

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

it is good to have measured myself, to recognize my limitations.

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.

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

It is a common remark that men talk most who think least; just as frogs cease their quacking when a light is brought to the water-side.