Science Physics Quotes

• Physics is becoming so unbelievably complex that it is taking longer and longer to train a physicist. It is taking so long, in fact, to train a physicist to the place where he understands the nature of physical problems that he is already too old to solve them.

  Eugene Wigner

  Nature, Science, Long

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• Our entire much-praised technological progress, and civilization generally, could be compared to an axe in the hand of a pathological criminal.

  Albert Einstein

  Love, Life, Motivational

  Letter to Heinrich Zangger (1917), as quoted in "Albert Einstein: A Biography" by Albrecht Fölsing, (p. 399), 1997.

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• In science it often happens that scientists say, "You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken..."

  Carl Sagan

  Change, Science, Theoretical Physics

  Keynote address at CSICOP conference, 1987.

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• The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.

  Albert Einstein

  Inspirational, Time, White Collar

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• Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it.

  Albert Einstein

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  Albert Einstein (2013). “Albert Einstein, The Human Side: Glimpses from His Archives”, p.57, Princeton University Press

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• The faster you go, the shorter you are.

  Albert Einstein

  Love, Life, God

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• The great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

  Isaac Newton

  Trust, Truth, Ocean

  Quoted in Christian Monitor, and Religious Intelligencer, 4 July 1812. An almost identical quotation by Newton, said to have been uttered "a little before he died," appears in Joseph Spence, Anecdotes, Observations, and Characters of Books and Men, published in 1820 but extant in manuscript form from around 1730. A paraphrase of Newton's words was printed in a note in a 1797 edition of TheWorks of Alexander Pope.

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• Mathematics began to seem too much like puzzle solving. Physics is puzzle solving, too, but of puzzles created by nature, not by the mind of man.

  Maria Goeppert-Mayer

  Nature, Math, Men

  "A Course in Mathematical Methods for Physicists". Book by Russell L. Herman, p. 53, December 4, 2013.

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• If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell's equations - then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation - well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.

  Arthur Eddington

  Hope, Science, Errors

  "The Nature of the Physical World" by Arthur Eddington, (Ch. 4), 1928.

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

  Niels Bohr

  Inspirational, Life, Science

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

  Niels Bohr

  Learning, Thinking, Theoretical Physics

  "The philosophy of Niels Bohr" by Aage Petersen in "Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists", Volume 19, No. 7 (September 1963), as quoted in Abraham Pais "The Genius of Science: A Portrait Gallery" (p. 24), 2000, and in Paul McEvoy "Niels Bohr: Reflections on Subject and Object" (p. 291), October 2000.

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

  Niels Bohr

  Inspirational, Encouraging, Education

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• If your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.

  Arthur Eddington

  Law, Giving, Found

  Arthur Eddington (2012). “The Nature of the Physical World: Gifford Lectures (1927)”, p.74, Cambridge University Press

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• In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.

  Galileo Galilei

  Truth, Inspiration, Independent

  "Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men". Book by François Arago, as translated by Baden Powell, Robert Grant, and William Fairbairn, p. 365, 1859.

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• All science is either physics or stamp collecting.

  Ernest Rutherford

  Witty, Humorous, Science

  Quoted in J. B. Birks, Rutherford at Manchester (1962)

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• The important thing in science is not so much to obtain new facts as to discover new ways of thinking about them.

  William Lawrence Bragg

  Knowledge, Learning, Science

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  Basic research is what I am doing when I don't know what I am doing.

  Wernher von Braun

  Wisdom, Witty, Humorous

  "Work, Society, and Culture". The New York Times, December 16, 1957.

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• Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.

  Richard P. Feynman

  Sex, Learning, Science

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• Physics isn't a religion. If it were, we'd have a much easier time raising money.

  Leon M. Lederman

  Time, Science, Religion

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• In physics, you don't have to go around making trouble for yourself - nature does it for you.

  Frank Wilczek

  Funny, Science, Doe

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• In science, the credit goes to the man who convinces the world, not to the man to whom the idea first occurs.

  Francis Darwin

  Business, Science, Men

  Eugenics Review, Apr. 1914

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• Science is simply common sense at its best.

  Thomas Huxley

  Motivational, Math, Science

  Thomas Henry Huxley (1902). “An Introduction to the Study of Zoology, Illustrated by the Crayfish”

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• Imagination is more important than knowledge.

  Albert Einstein

  Inspirational, Positive, Leadership

  Albert Einstein (2015). “Bite-Size Einstein: Quotations on Just About Everything from the Greatest Mind of the Twentieth Century”, p.32, St. Martin's Press

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• In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it is the exact opposite.

  Paul Dirac

  Science, Opposites, People

  "Brighter Than a Thousand Suns: A Personal History of the Atomic Scientists". Book by by Robert Jungk, as translated by James Cleugh, p. 22, 1958.

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  Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.

  Albert Einstein

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  Albert Einstein's letter to his son Eduard (February 5, 1930), as quoted in Walter Isaacson "Einstein: His Life and Universe" (p. 367), 2007.

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