Niels Bohr Quotes (30 Quotes)


    Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think.

    We all agree that your theory is crazy, but is it crazy enough.

    Every sentence I utter must be understood not as an affirmation, but as a question.

    Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it.

    Einstein, stop telling God what to do!


    The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth.

    If anybody says he can think about quantum physics without getting giddy, that only shows he has not understood the first thing about them.

    There are some things so serious you have to laugh at them.

    The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness.

    A physicist is just an atom's way of looking at itself.

    An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made, in a narrow field.

    We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question which divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct. My own feeling is that it is not crazy enough.

    While astronomers expected the early history of the Milky Way was quite chaotic, most had believed that it since had been rather calm, ... But this turns out not to be true. Stars have been perturbed all the time throughout the Milky Way history.

    An independant reality in the ordinary physical sense can neither be ascribed to the phenomenon nor to the agencies of observation.

    It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how Nature is. Physics concerns what we say about Nature.

    An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made but in a very narrow field.

    Two sorts of truth trivialities, where opposites are obviously absurd, and profound truths, recognized by the fact that the opposite is also a profound truth.

    Of course I don't believe in it. But I understand that it brings you luck whether you believe in it or not.

    How wonderful that we have met with a paradox. Now we have some hope of making progress.

    If quantum mechanics hasn't profoundly shocked you, you haven't understood it yet.

    There are trivial truths and the great truths. The opposite of a trivial truth is plainly false. The opposite of a great truth is also true.

    An expert is someone who knows some of the worst mistakes, which can be made, in a very narrow field.

    Technology has advanced more in the last thirty years than in the previous two thousand. The exponential increase in advancement will only continue. Anthropological Commentary The opposite of a trivial truth is false; the opposite of a great truth is also true.

    One of the favorite maxims of my father was the distinction between the two sorts of truths, profound truths recognized by the fact that the opposite is also a profound truth, in contrast to trivialities where opposites are obviously absurd.

    Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future.

    Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real.

    Your theory is crazy, but it's not crazy enough to be true.

    When it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry. The poet, too, is not nearly so concerned with describing facts as with creating images.

    Every great and deep difficulty bears in itself its own solution. It forces us to change our thinking in order to find it.

    No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical.


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    Truth - Madness - Error & Mistake - Mastery & Expertise - Facts - Progress - Nature - Hope - Fathers - Sense & Perception - Emotions - Predictions - Chance - Physics - Man - Language - Future - Thought & Thinking - Computers & Technology - View All Niels Bohr Quotations

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    Stephen Hawking - Werner Heisenberg - Roger Penrose - Richard P. Feynman - Niels Bohr - James Prescott Joule - Ilya Prigogine - Hermann von Helmholtz - Brian Greene - Andrei Sakharov


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