Steven Weinberg Quotes

Quotes about:

• With or without religion, 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

  God, Religious, Atheist

  "Behaving Badly? Stop Using Religion as an Excuse!" by Roy Speckhardt, www.huffingtonpost.com. April 2, 2014.

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• Science doesn't make it impossible to believe in God, it just makes it possible not to believe in God

  Steven Weinberg

  Believe, Impossible, Believe In God

  65 Copy quote

• A physicist friend of mine once said that in facing death, he drew some consolation from the reflection that he would never again have to look up the word "hermeneutics" in the dictionary.

  Steven Weinberg

  Reflection, Looks, Look Up

  Steven Weinberg (2012). “Facing Up”, p.141, Harvard University Press

  95 Copy quote

• All logical arguments can be defeated by the simple refusal to reason logically

  Steven Weinberg

  Simple, Logical Arguments, Religion

  Steven Weinberg (1992). “Dreams of a Final Theory”, Pantheon

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• The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike.

  Steven Weinberg

  Death, Spiritual, Religious

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• I think enormous harm is done by religion - not just in the name of religion, but actually by religion. ... Many people do simply awful things out of sincere religious belief, not using religion as a cover the way that Saddam Hussein may have done, but really because they believe that this is what God wants them to do, going all the way back to Abraham being willing to sacrifice Isaac because God told him to do that. Putting God ahead of humanity is a terrible thing.

  Steven Weinberg

  Religious, Believe, Sacrifice

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• Anything that we scientists can do to weaken the hold of religion, should be done and may, in fact, in the end, be our greatest contribution to civilization.

  Steven Weinberg

  Civilization, Facts, Done

  Beyond Belief : Science, Religion, Reason and Survival, November 5, 2006.

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• The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.

  Steven Weinberg

  Religion, Atheism, Seems

  The First Three Minutes epilogue (1977)

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• Sometimes nature seems more beautiful than strictly necessary.

  Steven Weinberg

  Beautiful, Sometimes, Seems

  Steven Weinberg (1992). “Dreams of a Final Theory”, Pantheon

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• The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lifts human life a little above the level of farce, and gives it some of the grace of tragedy.

  Steven Weinberg

  Life, Education, Money

  Steven Weinberg (2012). “Facing Up”, p.42, Harvard University Press

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• I enjoy being at a meeting that doesn't start with an invocation!

  Steven Weinberg

  Atheism, Invocation, Enjoy

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• As you learn more and more about the irrelevance of human life to the general mechanism of the universe, the idea of an interested god, becomes increasingly implausible.

  Steven Weinberg

  Irrelevance, Ideas, Human Life

  21 Copy quote

• If there is no point in the universe that we discover by the methods of science, there is a point that we can give the universe by the way we live, by loving each other, by discovering things about nature, by creating works of art. And that — in a way, although we are not the stars in a cosmic drama, if the only drama we're starring in is one that we are making up as we go along, it is not entirely ignoble that faced with this unloving, impersonal universe we make a little island of warmth and love and science and art for ourselves. That's not an entirely despicable role for us to play.

  Steven Weinberg

  Art, Stars, Drama

  "The Faith of Scientists: In Their Own Words". Book edited by Nancy K. Frankenberry, 2008.

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• This is one of the great social functions of science - to free people from superstition

  Steven Weinberg

  People, Atheism, Superstitions

  Freethought Today, April 2000.

  44 Copy quote

• Our job in physics is to see things simply, to understand a great many complicated phenomena in a unified way, in terms of a few simple principles.

  Steven Weinberg

  Jobs, Science, Simple

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• In complexity, it is only simplicity that can be interesting.

  Steven Weinberg

  Interesting, Simplicity, Complexity

  Steven Weinberg (2012). “Lake Views”, p.112, Harvard University Press

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• Science should be taught not in order to support religion and not in order to destroy religion. Science should be taught simply ignoring religion.

  Steven Weinberg

  Order, Support, Atheism

  Freethought Today (unidentified article/page), April 2000.

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• Some people have views of God that are so broad and flexible that it is inevitable that they will find God wherever they look for him. One hears it said that 'God is the ultimate' or 'God is our better nature' or 'God is the universe.' Of course, like any other word, the word 'God' can be given any meaning we like. If you want to say that 'God is energy,' then you can find God in a lump of coal.

  Steven Weinberg

  Views, People, Energy

  Steven Weinberg (1992). “Dreams of a Final Theory”, Pantheon

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• The whole history of the last thousands of years has been a history of religious persecutions and wars, pogroms, jihads, crusades. I find it all very regrettable, to say the least.

  Steven Weinberg

  Religious, War, Years

  "SCIENTIST AT WORK: Steven Weinberg; Physicist Ponders God, Truth and 'Final Theory'" by James Glanz, www.nytimes.com. January 25, 2000.

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• I have a friend — or had a friend, now dead — Abdus Salam, a very devout Muslim, who was trying to bring science into the universities in the Gulf states and he told me that he had a terrible time because, although they were very receptive to technology, they felt that science would be a corrosive to religious belief, and they were worried about it… and damn it, I think they were right. It is corrosive of religious belief, and it’s a good thing too.

  Steven Weinberg

  Religious, Technology, Thinking

  "The Atheism Tapes". Documentary, 2004.

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• Rational argument can be defeated by refusing to argue rationally.

  Steven Weinberg

  Science, Arguing, Argument

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• If there is a God that has special plans for humans, then He has taken very great pains to hide His concern for us. To me it would seem impolite if not impious to bother such a God with our prayers.

  Steven Weinberg

  Prayer, Pain, Taken

  Steven Weinberg (1992). “Dreams of a Final Theory”, Pantheon

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• It is even harder to realize that this present universe has evolved from an unspeakably unfamiliar early condition, and faces a future extinction of endless cold or intolerable heat. The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it seems pointless.

  Steven Weinberg

  Future, Science, Extinction

  The First Three Minutes epilogue (1977)

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• Its a consequence of the experience of science. As you learn more and more about the universe, you find you can understand more and more without any reference to supernatural intervention, so you lose interest in that possibility. Most scientists I know dont care enough about religion even to call themselves atheists. And that, I think, is one of the great things about science-that it has made it possible for people not to be religious.

  Steven Weinberg

  Religious, Atheist, Thinking

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• If you have bought one of those T-shirts with Maxwell's equations on the front, you may have to worry about its going out of style, but not about its becoming false. We will go on teaching Maxwellian electrodynamics as long as there are scientists.

  Steven Weinberg

  Teaching, Long, Worry

  Steven Weinberg (2003). “Facing Up”, p.198, Harvard University Press

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