The great extension of our experience in recent years has brought light to the insufficiency of our simple mechanical conceptions and, as a consequence, has shaken the foundation on which the customary interpretation of observation was based. Niels Bohr More Quotes by Niels Bohr More Quotes From Niels Bohr There are trivial truths and the great truths. The opposite of a trivial truth is plainly false. The opposite of a great truth is also true. Niels Bohr family truth inspirational When it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry. Niels Bohr atoms language science We are trapped by language to such a degree that every attempt to formulate insight is a play on words. Niels Bohr degrees statistics play Physics is the belief that a simple and consistent description of nature is possible. Niels Bohr physics belief simple If an idea does not appear bizarre, there is no hope for it. Niels Bohr creativity work ideas The measurement we get when we measure something is not a property of the thing measured. Niels Bohr property measurement The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth. Niels Bohr truth opposites science When asked ... [about] an underlying quantum world, Bohr would answer, 'There is no quantum world. There is only an abstract quantum physical description. It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about Nature.' Niels Bohr nature science thinking In our description of nature the purpose is not to disclose the real essence of the phenomena but only to track down, so far as it is possible, relations between the manifold aspects of our experience. Niels Bohr nature real essence Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think. Niels Bohr inspirational science thinking How wonderful that we have met with a paradox. Now we have some hope of making progress. Niels Bohr progress physics thinking It is, indeed, perhaps the greatest prospect of humanistic studies to contribute through an increasing knowledge of the history of cultural development to that gradual removal of prejudices which is the common aim of all science. Niels Bohr prejudice development common Every valuable human being must be a radical and a rebel, for what he must aim at is to make things better than they are. Niels Bohr radical rebel spiritual Sometimes the child in one behaves a certain way and the rest of oneself follows behind, slowly shaking its head. Niels Bohr change time children 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 theoretical-physics learning thinking The very nature of the quantum theory ... forces us to regard the space-time coordination and the claim of causality, the union of which characterizes the classical theories, as complementary but exclusive features of the description, symbolizing the idealization of observation and description, respectively. Niels Bohr causality unions space 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 The meaning of life consists in the fact that it makes no sense to say that life has no meaning. Niels Bohr life-has-no-meaning meaning-of-life facts What is that we human beings ultimately depend on? We depend on our words. We are suspended in language. Our task is to communicate experience and ideas to others. Niels Bohr tasks science ideas We depend on our words... Our task is to communicate experience and ideas to others. We must strive continually to extend the scope of our description, but in such a way that our messages do not thereby lose their objective or unambiguous character... We are suspended in language in such a way that we cannot say what is up and what is down. The word "reality" is also a word, a word which we must learn to use correctly. Niels Bohr character reality ideas
