Quotes by Physicists - Page 24

My religiosity consists of a humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God.
Albert Einstein
Many races as well as cultural influences of men of all kinds have mixed into any man. To select, for approbation the peculiar elements that come from some supposedly Jewish heredity is to open the door to all kinds of nonsense on racial theory.
Richard Feynman
In the history of science, ever since the famous trial of Galileo, it has repeatedly been claimed that scientific truth cannot be reconciled with the religious interpretation of the world. Although I an now convinced that scientific truth is unassailable in its own field, I have never found it possible to dismiss the content of religious thinking as simply part of an outmoded phase in the consciousness of mankind, a part we shall have to give up from now on, Thus in the course of my life I have repeatedly been compelled to ponder on the relationship of these two regions of though, for I have never been able to doubt the reality of that to which they point.
Werner Heisenberg
There cannot be a language more universal and more simple, more free from errors and obscurities...more worthy to express the invariable relations of all natural things [than mathematics]. [It interprets] all phenomena by the same language, as if to attest the unity and simplicity of the plan of the universe, and to make still more evident that unchangeable order which presides over all natural causes
Joseph Fourier
Two men who had never seen each other before and would not likely see each other again. But their sincerity and sweetness, their sharing an instant in a fleeting life. It was almost as if a secret had passed between them. Was this some kind of love? I wanted to follow them, to touch them, to tell them of my happiness. I wanted to whisper to them: 'This is it. This is it'".
Alan Lightman
The pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, an almost fanatical love of justice and the desire for personal independence -- these are the features of the Jewish tradition which make me thank my stars that I belong to it.
Albert Einstein
Many of us are confessional giants but ethical midgets.
Mark Buchanan
This principle of nature being very remote from the conceptions of Philosophers, I forbore to describe it in that book, least I should be accounted an extravagant freak and so prejudice my Readers against all those things which were the main designe of the book.
Isaac Newton
Arabic science throughout its golden age was inextricably linked to religion; indeed, it was driven by the need of early scholars to interpret the Qur'an.
Jim Al-Khalili
Those whose acquaintance with scientific research is derived chiefly from its practical results easily develop a completely false notion of the mentality of the men who, surrounded by a skeptical world, have shown the way to kindred spirits scattered wide through the world and through the centuries. Only one who has devoted his life to similar ends can have a vivid realization of what has inspired these men and given them the strength to remain true to their purpose in spite of countless failures. It is cosmic religious feeling that gives a man such strength. A contemporary has said, not unjustly, that in this materialistic age of ours the serious scientific workers are the only profoundly religious people.
Albert Einstein
There are two objectionable types of believers: those who believe the incredible, and those who believe that 'belief' must be discarded and replaced by 'the scientific method'.
Max Born
I maintain that the cosmic religious feeling is the strongest and noblest motive for scientific research.
Albert Einstein
How can cosmic religious feeling be communicated from one person to another, if it can give rise to no definite notion of a God and no theology? In my view, it is the most important function of art and science to awaken this feeling and keep it alive in those who are receptive to it.
Albert Einstein
It is this mythical, or rather symbolic, content of the religious traditions which is likely to come into conflict with science. This occurs whenever this religious stock of ideas contains dogmatically fixed statements on subjects which belong in the domain of science.
Albert Einstein
No religion except ours has taught that man is born in sin none of the philosophical sects has admitted it none therefore has spoken the truth
Blaise Pascal
That which is impenetrable to us really exists. Behind the secrets of nature remains something subtle, intangible, and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion.
Albert Einstein
Science is opposed to theological dogmas because science is founded on fact. To me, the universe is simply a great machine which never came into being and never will end. The human being is no exception to the natural order. Man, like the universe, is a machine. Nothing enters our minds or determines our actions which is not directly or indirectly a response to stimuli beating upon our sense organs from without. Owing to the similarity of our construction and the sameness of our environment, we respond in like manner to similar stimuli, and from the concordance of our reactions, understanding is born. In the course of ages, mechanisms of infinite complexity are developed, but what we call 'soul' or 'spirit,' is nothing more than the sum of the functionings of the body. When this functioning ceases, the 'soul' or the 'spirit' ceases likewise.I expressed these ideas long before the behaviorists, led by Pavlov in Russia and by Watson in the United States, proclaimed their new psychology. This apparently mechanistic conception is not antagonistic to an ethical conception of life.
Nikola Tesla
The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man's image; so that there can be no church whose central teachings are based on it. Hence it is precisely among the heretics of every age that we find men who were filled with this highest kind of religious feeling and were in many cases regarded by their contemporaries as atheists, sometimes also as saints. Looked at in this light, men like Democritus, Francis of Assisi, and Spinoza are closely akin to one another.
Albert Einstein
So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator. But if the universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end: it would simply be. What place, then, for a creator?
Stephen Hawking
A man's ethical behaviour should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.
Albert Einstein
The problem with today’s world is that everyone believes they have the right to express their opinion AND have others listen to it. The correct statement of individual rights is that everyone has the right to an opinion, but crucially, that opinion can be roundly ignored and even made fun of, particularly if it is demonstrably nonsense!
Brian Cox
It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.
Albert Einstein
Religion is an insult to human dignity. Without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things.But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
Steven Weinberg
There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, and science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works.
Stephen Hawking
Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who sets the planets in motion.
Isaac Newton
Your question is the most difficult in the world. It is not a question I can answer simply with yes or no. I am not an Atheist. I do not know if I can define myself as a Pantheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. May I not reply with a parable? The human mind, no matter how highly trained, cannot grasp the universe. We are in the position of a little child, entering a huge library whose walls are covered to the ceiling with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written those books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books, a mysterious order, which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of the human mind, even the greatest and most cultured, toward God. We see a universe marvelously arranged, obeying certain laws, but we understand the laws only dimly. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that sways the constellations. I am fascinated by Spinoza's Pantheism. I admire even more his contributions to modern thought. Spinoza is the greatest of modern philosophers, because he is the first philosopher who deals with the soul and the body as one, not as two separate things.
Albert Einstein
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom the emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand wrapped in awe, is as good as dead —his eyes are closed. The insight into the mystery of life, coupled though it be with fear, has also given rise to religion. To know what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms—this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness.
Albert Einstein
If there is any religion that could respond to the needs of modern science, it would be Buddhism.
Albert Einstein
Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.
Albert Einstein
The principal art of the teacher is to awaken the joy in creation and knowledge.
Albert Einstein
There are three sources of belief: reason, custom, inspiration.
Blaise Pascal
Phantasie ist wichtiger als Wissen, denn Wissen ist begrenzt.
Albert Einstein
Imagination is the highest form of research.
Albert Einstein
[Presently, science undergraduates] do not learn to write clearly and briefly, marshalling their points in due and aesthetically satisfying order, and eliminating inessentials. They are inept at those turns of phrase or happy analogy which throw a flying bridge across a chasm of misunderstanding and make contact between mind and mind.
William Lawrence Bragg
To make a man a saint, it must indeed be by grace; and whoever doubts this does not know what a saint is, or a man.
Blaise Pascal
By denying scientific principles, one may maintain any paradox.
Galileo Galilei
Remember, an easy question can have an easy answer. But a hard question must have a hard answer. And for the hardest questions of all, there may be no answer - except faith.
Charles Sheffield
If we submit everything to reason our religion will be left with nothing mysterious or supernatural. If we offend the principles of reason our religion will be absurd and ridiculous . . . There are two equally dangerous extremes: to exclude reason, to admit nothing but reason.
Blaise Pascal
I believe in intuitions and inspirations...I sometimes FEEL that I am right. I do not KNOW that I am.
Albert Einstein
When you get to the end of all the light you know and it's time to step into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing that one of two things shall happen: either you will be given something solid to stand on, or you will be taught how to fly.
Edward Teller
In scientific thinking are always present elements of poetry. Science and music requires a thought homogeneous.
Albert Einstein
The last thing one discovers in composing a work is what to put first.
Blaise Pascal
Love knows no limit to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; it can outlast anything. Love still stands when all else has fallen.
Blaise Pascal
Sometimes I think about dying. And then I wonder about going to hell. And then I think that if and when I go there, the place will be completely organized and run by lost souls, with a council and a works committee and an ethics panel, and I'll feel right at home.
Charles Sheffield
In the last moment of his life, he turned his fading "flame of life" into a huge fire that enveloped the world. I've never laughed more than on that day...!! I've never cried more than on that day... I've never drank more either..!! He was our captain... and he was a magnificent man...!!!
Rayleigh
But there is nothing in biology yet found that indicates the inevitability of death.
Richard Feynman
Selling eternal life is an unbeatable business, with no customers ever asking for their money back after the goods are not delivered.
Victor J. Stenger
Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.
J. Robert Oppenheimer
From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: that we are here for the sake of each other - above all for those upon whose smile and well-being our own happiness depends, and also for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy. Many times a day I realize how much my own outer and inner life is built upon the labors of my fellow men, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received.
Albert Einstein
If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.
Albert Einstein
Certein bodies... become luminous when heated. Their luminosity disappears after some time, but the capacity of becoming luminous afresh through heat is restored to them by the action of a spark, and also by the action of radium.
Marie Curie
Man is here for the sake of other men - above all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness depends.
Albert Einstein
The really happy person is the one who can enjoy the scenery, even when they have to take a detour.
James Hopwood Jeans
The tragedy of this world is that no one is happy, whether stuck in a time of pain or joy.
Alan Lightman
Bring forward what is true. Write it so that it is clear. Defend it to your last breath.
Ludwig Boltzmann
Strange is our situation here on Earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to divine a purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: that man is here for the sake of other men - above all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness depends.
Albert Einstein
I am firmly convinced that we must never judge political movements by their aims, no matter how loudly proclaimed or how sincerely upheld, but only by the means they use to realize these aims.
Werner Heisenberg
I want a man who knows something about himself. And is appalled. And has to forgive himself to get along.
C.P. Snow
If one tries to navigate unknown waters one runs the risk of shipwreck
Albert Einstein
You cannot teach a man anything, you can only help him find it within himself.
Galileo Galilei