Arthur Eddington Quotes

Consciousness is not wholly, nor even primarily a device for receiving sense-impressions. … there is another outlook than the scientific one, because in practice a more transcendental outlook is almost universally admitted. … who does not prize these moments that reveal to us the poetry of existence?

We often think that when we have completed our study of one we know all about two, because 'two' is 'one and one'. We forget that we have still to make a study of 'and'.

[Experimental Physicist] Phys. I cannot imagine myself perceiving non-Euclidean space!
Math. Look at the reflection of the room in a polished doorknob, and imagine yourself one of the actors in what you see going on there.

Consciousness is not wholly, nor even primarily a device for receiving sense-impressions.

Consciousness is not sharply defined, but fades into sub-consciousness; and beyond that we must postulate something indefinite but yet continuous with our mental nature. This I take it be the world-stuff.

The scientific answer is relevant so far as concerns the sense-impressions … For the rest the human spirit must turn to the unseen world to which it itself belongs.

Wind, earthquake, fire — meteorology, seismology, physics — pass in review, as we have been reviewing the natural forces of evolution; the Lord was not in them. Afterwards, a stirring, an awakening in the organ of the brain, a voice which asks "What doest thou here?"

The mind-stuff is not spread in space and time. But we must presume that in some other way or aspect it can be differentiated into parts. Only here and there does it arise to the level of consciousness, but from such islands proceeds all knowledge. The latter includes our knowledge of the physical world.

The appearance of a four-dimensional world is due to Minkowski. Einstein showed the relativity of the familiar quantities of physics; Minkowski showed how to recover the absolute by going back to their four-dimensional origin and searching more deeply.

Mind is the first and most direct thing in our experience; all else is remote inference.

It would probably be wiser to nail up over the door of the new quantum theory a notice, 'Structural alterations in progress - No admittance except on business', and particularly to warn the doorkeeper to keep out prying philosophers.

We used to think that if we knew one, we knew two, because one and one are two. We are finding that we must learn a great deal more about ‘and.

We do not want a religion that deceives us for our own good.

The determinism of the physical laws simply reflects the determinism of the method of inference. This soulless nature of the scientific world need not worry those who are persuaded that the main significances of our environment are of a more spiritual character.

There once was a brainy baboon, Who always breathed down a bassoon, For he said, "It appears That in billions of years I shall certainly hit on a tune".