My peculiarity is this: I find it psychologically very distasteful to judge people's 'merit.' So I cannot participate in the main activity of selecting people for membership. To be a member of a group, of which an important activity is to choose others deemed worthy of membership in that self-esteemed group bothers me. The care with which we select 'those worthy of the honor' of joining the Academy feels to me like a form of self-praise. How can we say only the best must be allowed in to join those who are already in, without loudly proclaiming to our inner selves that we who are in must be very good indeed. Of course I believe I am very good indeed, but that is a private matter and I cannot publicly admit that I do so, to such an extent that I have the nerve to decide that this man, or that, is not worthy of joining my elite club..."
- Richard Fenynam, in a letter to the National Academy of Sciences on why he wanted to resign