Quotes by Physicists

Do you wish people to think well of you? Don't speak well of yourself.
Blaise Pascal
I spent a long time in the study of the abstract sciences, and was disheartened by the small number of fellow-students in them. When I commenced the study of man, I saw that these abstract sciences are not suited to man, and that I was wandering further from my own state in examining them, than others in not knowing them. I pardoned their little knowledge; but I thought at least to find many companions in the study of man, and that it was the true study which is suited to him. I have been deceived; still fewer study it than geometry. It is only from want of knowing how to study this that we seek the other studies. But is it not that even here is not the knowledge which man should have, and that for the purposes of happiness it is better for him not to know himself?
Pascal
God who gave Animals self motion beyond our understanding is without doubt able to implant other principles of motion in bodies [which] we may understand as little. Some would readily grant this may be a Spiritual one; yet a mechanical one might be showne, did not I think it better to pass it by.
Isaac Newton
Man lives on earth not once, but three times: the first stage of his life is his continual sleep; the second, sleeping and waking by turns; the third, waking forever.
Gustav Fechner
If I were king, I would redress an abuse which cuts back, as it were, one half of human kind. I would have women participate in all human rights, especially those of the mind.
Émilie Du Châtelet
If I were to remain silent, I'd be guilty of complicity.
Albert Einstein
You must not blame us scientists for the use which war technicians have put our discoveries.
Lise Meitner
We all would like to know more and, at the same time, to receive less information. In fact, the problem of a worker in today's knowledge industry is not the scarcity of information but its excess. The same holds for professionals: just think of a physician or an executive, constantly bombarded by information that is at best irrelevant. In order to learn anything we need time. And to make time we must use information filters allowing us to ignore most of the information aimed at us. We must ignore much to learn a little.
Mario Bunge
Bad writers are those who try to express their own feeble ideas in the language of good ones.
G. C. Lichtenberg
I have only made this letter rather long because I have not had time to make it shorter.
Blaise Pascal
But it does move.
Galileo
Winning the [Nobel] prize wasn't half as exciting as doing the work itself.
Maria Goeppert Mayer
How do I work? I grope.
Albert Einstein
Let it not be said that I have said nothing new. The arrangement of the material is new.
Blaise Pascal
All mankind's unhappiness derives from one thing: his inability to know how to remain in repose in one room.
Blaise Pascal
If you are out to describe the truth leave elegance to the tailor.
Albert Einstein
One can live in this world on soothsaying but not on truth saying.
G. C. Lichtenberg
I think and think for months for years. Ninety-nine times the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right.
Albert Einstein
When you sit with a nice girl for two hours you think it's only a minute. But when you sit on a hot stove for a minute you think it's two hours. That's relativity.
Albert Einstein
The past and present are only our means the future is always our end. Thus we never really live but only hope to live.
Blaise Pascal
As we are always preparing to be happy it is inevitable that we should never be so.
Blaise Pascal
Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age 18.
Albert Einstein
I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.
Albert Einstein
You cannot teach a man anything you can only help him to find it within himself.
Galileo
The struggle alone pleases us not the victory.
Blaise Pascal
A successful man is he who receives a great deal from his fellow men usually incomparably more than corresponds to his service to them. The value of a man however should be seen in what he gives and not in what he is able to receive.
Albert Einstein
Try not to become a man of success but rather a man of value.
Albert Einstein
I rate enthusiasm even above professional skill.
Sir Edward Appleton
With most people doubt about one thing is simply blind belief in another.
G. C. Lichtenberg
I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for everyone best both for the body and the mind.
Albert Einstein
Everything should be made as simple as possible ... but not simpler.
Albert Einstein
Follow your interests get the best available education and training set your sights high be persistent be flexible keep your options open accept help when offered and be prepared to help others.
Mildred Spiewak Dresselhaus
Our own interests are still an exquisite means for dazzling our eyes agreeably.
Blaise Pascal
He who is in love with himself has at least this advantage he won't encounter many rivals.
G. C. Lichtenberg
E = MC^2: Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared.
Albert Einstein
If I have seen farther it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.
Isaac Newton
It is the theory which decided what can be observed.
Albert Einstein
Science is the attempt to make the chaotic diversity of our sense-experience correspond to a logically uniform system of thought.
Albert Einstein
It may be bizarre but in my opinion science offers a sure path to God and religion.
Paul Davies
No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right a single experiment can prove me wrong.
Albert Einstein
I think and think for months and years. Ninety-nine times the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right
Albert Einstein
Life exists in the universe only because the carbon atom possesses certain exceptional properties.
James Jeans
Science without religion is lame religion without science is blind.
Albert Einstein
All science is either Physics or stamp-collecting.
Lord Kelvin
As far as the laws of Mathematics refer to reality they are not certain and as far as they are certain they do not refer to reality.
Albert Einstein
The first sigh of love is the last of wisdom.
Antoine Bret
All men have happiness as their object: there is no exception. However different the means they employ they aim at the same end.
Blaise Pascal
The last advance of reason is to recognize that it is surpassed by innumerable things it is feeble if it cannot realize that.
Blaise Pascal
All our reasoning ends in surrender to feeling.
Blaise Pascal
When one's expectations are reduced to zero one really appreciates everything one does have.
Stephen Hawking
Only two things are infinite the universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the former.
Albert Einstein
This world of ours is a new world in which the unit of knowledge the nature of human communities the order of society the order of ideas the very notions of society and culture have changed and will not return to what they have been in the past. What is new is new not because it has never been there before but because it has changed in quality.
J. Robert Oppenheimer
Jesus Christ is a God whom we approach without pride and before whom we humble ourselves without despair.
Blaise Pascal
Give me a lever long enough And a prop strong enough I can single-handed move the world.
Archimedes
Practice being excited.
Bill Foster
The world is a dangerous place to live - not because of the people who are evil but because of the people who don't do anything about it.
Albert Einstein
The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.
Niels Bohr
Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing at whatever cost must be attained.
Marie Curie
The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of.
Blaise Pascal
Great and small suffer the same mishaps.
Blaise Pascal