Intelligent Quotes

“The search for truth is more precious than its possession.”

“The prize is the pleasure of finding the thing out.”

“One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike—and yet it is the most precious thing we have.”

“The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one. One could say that it has affected us quantitatively, not qualitatively.”

“In the field of observations, chance favors only the prepared mind.”

“The belief in an external world independent of the perceiving subject is the basis of all natural science.”

“We’ve learned from experience that the truth will come out. Other experimenters will repeat your experiment and find out whether you were wrong or right. Nature’s phenomena will agree or they’ll disagree with your theory. And, although you may gain some temporary fame and excitement, you will not gain a good reputation as a scientist if you haven’t tried to be very careful in this kind of work.”

“But we must not forget that when radium was discovered no one knew that it would prove useful in hospitals. The work was one of pure science. And this is a proof that scientific work must not be considered from the point of view of the direct usefulness of it. It must be done for itself, for the beauty of science, and then there is always the chance that a scientific discovery may become like the radium a benefit for humanity.”

“I have no dress except the one I wear. If you are going to be kind enough to give me one [a wedding dress], please let it be practical and dark, so that I can put it on afterwards to go to the laboratory.”

“This delicate little plant [curiosity], aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom.

“The test of all knowledge is experiment. Experiment is the sole judge of scientific truth.”

“One reason why mathematics enjoys special esteem, above all other sciences, is that its propositions are absolutely certain and indisputable, while those of all other sciences are to some extent debatable and in constant danger of being overthrown by newly discovered facts.”

“The motive of science was the extension of man, on all sides, into Nature, till his hands should touch the stars.”

“In science we must be interested in things, not in persons.”

“All our science lacks a human side.”

“Observation is the ultimate and final judge of the truth of an idea.”

“Nature is full of infinite causes that have never occured in experience.”

“Every scientific law, every scientific principle, every statement of the results of an observation is some kind of a summary which leaves out details.”

“The only way to have real success in science, the field I’m familiar with, is to describe the evidence very carefully without regard to the way you feel it should be. If you have a theory, you must try to explain what’s good and what’s bad about it equally. In science, you learn a kind of standard integrity and honesty.”

“Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn a living at it.”

“Development of Western science is based on two great achievements: the invention of the formal logical system (in Euclidean geometry) by the Greek philosophers, and the discovery of the possibility of finding out causal relationships by systematic experiment (Renaissance).”

“I believe in intuitions and inspirations. I sometimes feel that I am right. I do not know that I am.”

“There isn’t always an explanation for everything.”

“Experience never errs; it is only your judgments that err by promising themselves effects such as are not caused by your experiments.”

“A theory is the more impressive the greater the simplicity of its premises is, the more different kinds of things it relates, and the more extended is its area of applicability.”

“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.”

“I am among those who think that science has great beauty. A scientist in his laboratory is not only a technician: he is also a child placed before natural phenomena which impress him like a fairy tale.”

“Everything should be as simple as possible, but not simpler.”

“There are sadistic scientists who hurry to hunt down errors instead of establishing the truth.”

“Intellectual individualism and scientific eras emerged simultaneously in history and have remained inseparable ever since.”