Niels Bohr Quotes

The enrichment which art can give us originates in its power to remind us of harmonies beyond the grasp of systematic analysis. Literary, pictorial and musical art may be said to form a renunciation of definition, characteristic of scientific communication, leaves fantasy a freer display. In particular, in poetry this purpose is achieved by the juxtaposition of words relating to shifting observational situation, thereby emotionally uniting manifold aspects of human knowledge.

Just as the freedom of the will is an experiential category of our psychic life, causality may be considered as a mode of perception by which we reduce our sense impressions to order.

We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question that divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct.

Even the mathematical framework helps nothing, I would first like to understand how Nature avoids the contradictions. (1927)

كف عن إخبار الرب عما يجب عليه ان يفعله

Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real. If quantum mechanics hasn't profoundly shocked you, you haven't understood it yet.

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

Isolated material particles are abstractions, their properties being definable and observable only through their interaction with other systems.

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

A physicist is the atoms' way of thinking about
atoms.

Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.

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

It is not enough to be wrong, one must also be polite.

The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.

I go into the Upanishads to ask questions.