Niels Bohr

The meaning of life consists in the fact that it makes no sense to say that life has no meaning.

Your theory is crazy, but it's not crazy enough to be true.

When it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry. The poet, too, is not nearly so concerned with describing facts as with creating images.

The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth.

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

There are some things so serious you have to laugh at them.

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

Humanity will... be confronted with dangers of unprecedented character unless, in due time, measures can be taken to forestall a disastrous competition in such formidable armaments and to establish an international control of the manufacture and use of the powerful materials.

An expert is someone who knows some of the worst mistakes, which can be made, in a very narrow field.

Every description of natural processes must be based on ideas which have been introduced and defined by the classical theory.

An expert is a person who has found out by his own painful experience all the mistakes that one can make in a very narrow field.

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

Every sentence I utter must be understood not as an affirmation, but as a question.

How wonderful that we have met with a paradox. Now we have some hope of making progress.

A physicist is just an atom's way of looking at itself.

We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question which divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct. My own feeling is that it is not crazy enough.

Every great and deep difficulty bears in itself its own solution. It forces us to change our thinking in order to find it.

Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future.

If quantum mechanics hasn't profoundly shocked you, you haven't understood it yet.

Physics is the belief that a simple and consistent description of nature is possible.

While the finish given to our picture of the world by the theory of relativity has already been absorbed into the general scientific consciousness, this has scarcely occurred to the same extent with those aspects of the general problem of knowledge which have been elucidated by the quantum theory.

The opposite of a fact is a falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth.

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.

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.

Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real.

Einstein, stop telling God what to do!

No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical.

Technology has advanced more in the last thirty years than in the previous two thousand. The exponential increase in advancement will only continue. Anthropological Commentary The opposite of a trivial truth is false; the opposite of a great truth is also true.

Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think.

Opposites are not contradictory but complementary.

The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness.

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