Theoretical Physicist Quotes

I never teach my pupils, I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.

Empathy is patiently and sincerely seeing the world through the other person's eyes. It is not learned in school; it is cultivated over a lifetime.

The sole function of education...[is] to open the way to thinking and knowing, and the school, as the outstanding organ for the people's education, must serve that end exclusively.

We must recognize what in our accepted tradition is damaging to our fate and dignity-and shape our lives accordingly.

You must be aware that most men (and also not only a few women) are by nature not monogamous. This nature makes itself even more forceful when tradition and circumstance stand in an individual's way.

By academic freedom I understand the right to search for truth and to publish and teach what one holds to be true. This right also implies a duty: one must not conceal any part of what one has recognized to be true.

The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.

The same thinking that has led you to where you are is not going to lead you to where you want to go.

Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas.

Schools need not preach political doctrine to defend democracy. If they shape men capable of critical thought and trained in social attitudes, that is all that is necessary.

In the past it never occurred to me that every casual remark of mine would be snatched up and recorded. Otherwise I would have crept further into my shell.

I now see the necessity of a beginning.

I asked myself childish questions and proceeded to answer them.

Humiliation and mental oppression by ignorant and selfish teachers wreak havoc in the youthful mind that can never be undone and often exert a baleful influence in later life.

Solutions to tough problems should be made as simple as possible - and no simpler.

Indeed, it is not intellect, but intuition which advances humanity. Intuition tells man his purpose in this life.

I feel that you are justified in looking into the future with true assurance, because you have a mode of living in which we find the joy of life and the joy of work harmoniously combined. Added to this is the spirit of ambition which pervades your very being, and seems to make the day's work like a happy child at play.

Let every man judge according to his own standards, by what he has himself read, not by what others tell him.

When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That's relativity.

How insidious Nature is when one is trying to get at it experimentally.

All men are ignorant, just in different fields.

The greater the doubt, the greater the awakening

...behind all the discernible laws and connections, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable.

Our schoolbooks glorify war and conceal its horrors. They indoctrinate children with hatred. I would teach peace rather than war, love rather than hate.

Striving for peace and preparing for war are incompatible with each other, and in our time more so than ever.

I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity.

The right to search for truth implies also a duty.

Time has no independent existence apart from the order of events by which we measure it.

Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.

If you feed your mind as often as you feed your stomach, then you'll never have to worry about feeding your stomach or a roof over your head or clothes on your back.

It is always delightful when a great and beautiful idea proves to be consonant with reality.

If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask, for once I know the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes.

The future is an unknown, but a somewhat predictable unknown. To look to the future we must first look back upon the past. That is where the seeds of the future were planted. I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.

...Intelligence and character of the masses are incomparably lower than the intelligence and character of the few who produce something valuable for the community.

The finest emotion of which we are capable is the mystic emotion. Herein lies the germ of all art and all true science. Anyone to whom this feeling is alien, who is no longer capable of wonderment and lives in a state of fear is a dead man.

Nothing will end war unless the peoples themselves refuse to go to war.

The ideals which have always shone before me and filled me with the joy of living are goodness, beauty, and truth.

Life is a great tapestry. The individual is only an insignificant thread in an immense and miraculous pattern.

I am strongly drawn to a frugal life and am often oppressively aware that I am engrossing an undue amount of the labor of my fellow men.

The idea of achieving security through national armament is, at the present state of military technique, a disastrous illusion.

A man's value to the community primarily depends on how far his feelings, thoughts, and actions are directed towards promoting the good of his fellows.

The great need to grasp principles had caused me to spend most of my time on fruitless persuits.

The man of science is a poor philosopher.

How do I work? I grope.

I would not think that philosophy and reason themselves will be man's guide in the foreseeable future; however, they will remain the most beautiful sanctuary they have always been for the select few.

I never think of the future. It comes soon enough. When visiting the U.S. from Germany for a winter academic stay.

Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it. One should earn one's living by work of which one is sure one is capable. Only when we do not have to be accountable to anybody can we find joy in scientific endeavor.

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.

Things you can get access to, you should never memorize.

Why should i remember anything if i can just look it up?

I have become rather like King Midas, except that everything turns not into gold but into a circus.

What use are socks? They only produce holes.

I have reached an age where if someone tells me to wear socks, I dont have to

The most important human endeavor is the striving for morality in our actions.

Enough for me is the mystery of the eternity of life, and the inkling of the marvelous structure of reality. There is in this neither a will nor a goal, nor a must, but only sheer being.

I learned many years ago never to waste time trying to convince my colleagues.

Never lose a holy curiosity. Try not to become a man of success but rather try to become a man of value. He is considered successful in our day who gets more out of life than he puts in. But a man of value will give more than he receives.

The thinking that got us to where we are is not the thinking that will get us to where we want to be.

Intuitive powers played a central role in my scientific work, not wild speculation, yet a valued resource when no other approach was available.

Once again you are wrong sir, darkness does not exist either. Darkness is in reality the absence of light. Light we can study, but not darkness. In fact we can use Newton's prism to break white light into many colors and study the various wavelengths of each color. You cannot measure darkness. A simple ray of light can break into a world of darkness and illuminate it. How can you know how dark a certain space is? You measure the amount of light present. Isn't this correct? Darkness is a term used by man to describe what happens when there is no light present.