Physicist Quotes

Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.

The idea is to try to give all the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another.

I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy.

I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that here and there.

We are at the very beginning of time for the human race. It is not unreasonable that we grapple with problems. But there are tens of thousands of years in the future. Our responsibility is to do what we can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass them on.

For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled.

Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars - mere globs of gas atoms. I, too, can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more?

Scientific views end in awe and mystery, lost at the edge in uncertainty, but they appear to be so deep and so impressive that the theory that it is all arranged as a stage for God to watch man's struggle for good and evil seems inadequate.

If I could explain it to the average person, I wouldn't have been worth the Nobel Prize.

Nature uses only the longest threads to weave her patterns, so that each small piece of her fabric reveals the organization of the entire tapestry.

There is a computer disease that anybody who works with computers knows about. It's a very serious disease and it interferes completely with the work. The trouble with computers is that you 'play' with them!

It is in the admission of ignorance and the admission of uncertainty that there is a hope for the continuous motion of human beings in some direction that doesn't get confined, permanently blocked, as it has so many times before in various periods in the history of man.

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.

It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong.

If I could remember the names of all these particles, I'd be a botanist.

There's two possible outcomes: if the result confirms the hypothesis, then you've made a discovery. If the result is contrary to the hypothesis, then you've made a discovery.

There are two possible outcomes: if the result confirms the hypothesis, then you've made a measurement. If the result is contrary to the hypothesis, then you've made a discovery.

It is no good to try to stop knowledge from going forward. Ignorance is never better than knowledge.

The fundamental point in fabricating a chain reacting machine is of course to see to it that each fission produces a certain number of neutrons and some of these neutrons will again produce fission.

Ignorance is never better than knowledge.

Before I came here I was confused about this subject. Having listened to your lecture I am still confused. But on a higher level.

Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.

Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish.

Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.

Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.

No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.

Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.

It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer.

If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.

Imagination is more important than knowledge.