Quotes about Science, Physics and Life from Some Famous Scientists
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new
discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I found it!) but 'That's funny ...'

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

You cannot teach a man anything; you can only find it within yourself.
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.  (It is vain to do with more what can be done with less. -- Ockham's Razor.)


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's
the exact opposite.
 
Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which
deep insights can be winnowed from deep nonsense.
 
The important thing in science is not so much to obtain new facts as
to discover new ways of thinking about them.

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

That's not right.  That's not even wrong.

An experiment is a question which science poses to Nature and a
measurement is the recording of Nature's answer.

In Einstein's theory of relativity the observer is a man who sets out in
quest of truth armed with a measuring-rod. In quantum theory he sets
out with a sieve.
 
Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it.
The reward of the young scientist is the emotional th
rill of being the first person in the history of the world to see something or to understand something. Nothing can compare with that experience The reward of the old scientist is the sense of having seen a vague sketch grow into a masterly landscape.
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The reward of the young scientist is the emotional thrill of being the first person
in the history of the world to see something or to understand something.  Nothing
can compare with that experience.  The reward of  the old scientist is the sense of
having seen a vague  sketch grow into a masterly landscape.


In physics, you don't have to go around making trouble for yourself -
nature does it for you.
 Science is the only self-correcting human institution, but it also is a process
that progresses only by showing itself to be wrong.

Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood.  Now is the time
to understand more, so that we may fear less.

Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love.
How on earth can you explain in terms of chemistry and physics so
important a biological phenomenon as first love? Put your hand on a
stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with that special
girl for an hour and it seems like a minute. That's relativity.
In many cases, people who win a Nobel prize, their work slows down after
that because of the distractions.  Yes, fame is rewarding, but it's a pity if it
keeps you from doing the work you are good at.

Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this
world to another.
Science is a way of thinking much more then it is a body of knowledge.
Measure what can be measured, and make measureable what cannot be
measured.
Today's scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments,
and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually
build a structure which has no relation to reality.
Equations are just the boring part of mathematics. I attempt to see
things in terms of geometry.
Mathematics is the language in which God has written the universe.
A ship in port is safe, but that is not what ships are for.  Sail out to
sea and do new things."


The most important discoveries will provide answers to questions that we
do not yet know how to ask and will concern objects we have not yet
imagined.

There was a blithe certainty that came from first comprehending the
full Einstein field equations, arabesques of Greek letters clinging
tenuously to the page, a gossamer web. They seemed insubstantial
when you first saw them, a string of squiggles. Yet to follow the
delicate tensors as they contracted, as the superscripts paired with
subscripts, collapsing mathematically into concrete classical entities--
potential; mass; forces vectoring in a curved geometry-- that was a
sublime experience. The iron fist of the real, inside the velvet glove
of airy mathematics.
A scientist is happy, not in resting on his attainments, but in the steady
acquisition of fresh knowledge.

Science is built up of facts, as a house is built of stones; but an
accumulation of facts is no more science than a heap of stones a house.
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.
An experiment is a question which science poses to Nature and a
measurement is the recording of Nature's answer.
 Equipped with his five senses, man explores the universe around
him and calls the adventure Science.

In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
But, in practice, there is.

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.

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed
us with sense, reason, and intellect has asked us to forgo their use.

I have done a terrible thing, I have postulated a particle that
cannot be detected.

Science is as corruptible a human activity as any other.

If you thought that science was certain -- well, that is just an error on your part.
Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge.
Science has been seriously retarded by the study of what is not worth
knowing and of what is not knowable.

Much public thinking follows a rut.  The same thing is true in science.  People
get stuck and don't look in other directions.


All humans are brothers.  They came from the same supernova.

We can't help it.  Life looks for life.

Science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer.  Art is
everything else we do.

Science is the attempt to make the chaotic diversity of our sense-experience
correspond to a logically uniform system of thought.

Physics is not a religion.  If it were, we'd have a much easier time raising money.

We live in a society exquisitely dependent  on science and technology, in which hardly
anyone knows anything about science and technology.

The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement.  But the opposite of a
profound truth may well be another profound truth.
It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but
the one most responsive to change.

Lectures which really teach will never be popular; lectures which are popular
will never really teach.
The truth may be puzzling.  It may take some work to grapple with.  It may be counterintuitive.
It may contradict deeply held prejudices.  It may not be sconsonant with what we desperately
want to be ture.  But our preferences do not determine what's true.
Do not undertake a scientific career in quest of fame or money.  There are easier and better
ways to reach them.  Undertake it only if nothing else will satisfy you; for nothing else is probably
what you will receive.  Your reward will be the widening of the horizon as you climb. And if
you achieve that reward you will ask no other.

Do not undertake a scientific career in quest of fame or money. There are easier and better ways to reach them. Undertake it only if nothing else will satisfy you; for nothing else is probably what you will receive. Your reward will be the widening of the horizon as you climb. And if you achieve that reward you will ask no other.
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We must not wait for things to come, believing that they are decided by irrescindable destiny.  If we
want it, we must do somthing about it.


True religion is real living; living with all one's soul, with all one's goodness and
righteousness.

We can lick gravity, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming.

If all of mathematics disappeared, physics would be set back by exactly one week.

The scientist does not study nature because it is useful; he studies it because he delights in it,
and he delights in it because it is beautiful.  If nature were not beautiful, it would not be worth
knowing, and if nature were not worth knowing, life would not be worth living.

Life is like riding a bicycle, in order to keep your balance, you must keep moving.

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

There are a thousand ways to get a problem wrong -- not all of them bad -- and many ways
to get a problem right -- not all of them good.

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.

The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist knows it is.

Any new fact or insight that I may have found has not seemed to me as a 'discovery' of mine, but rather
something that has always been there and that I had chanced to pick up.
Nothing is too wonderful to be true.

In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.

There are only two ways to live your life.  One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though
everything in a miracle.