Science Quote by Eric Allin Cornell

The line lands like a neat reversal of a familiar defense mechanism: if you are good at something, you might dodge it anyway. Cornell flips the script with that opening “Conversely,” a scientist’s little pivot word that signals a hard-won change of mind, not a motivational poster. The sentence is built like an argument with itself. “Hardly a reason” quietly mocks the rationalizations we dress up as principles. It’s not that he’s praising talent; he’s puncturing the strange guilt and suspicion that often attaches to it.

The subtext is about the cultural habit of mistrusting ease. In a lot of intellectual environments, especially science, there’s a prestige economy around struggle: the harder thing is assumed to be the worthier thing, and competence can start to feel like cheating. Add in fear of being typecast, fear of plateauing, or the more personal anxiety that if you do the thing you’re good at and still fail, you lose your alibi. Avoidance becomes self-protection disguised as taste.

Coming from a physicist, the intent also reads as a practical ethic. Physics rewards depth, repetition, and the willingness to stay with a problem long after the first clever move. Being “good at something” isn’t a trophy; it’s data. It suggests where your attention, training, and temperament align with reality. Cornell’s phrasing treats aptitude not as destiny but as permission: a reason to lean in, do the work, and accept that competence is not a moral flaw.