Max Planck Quotes

62 quotes in 935 categories

• It was not by accident that the greatest thinkers of all ages were deeply religious souls.
• The man who cannot occasionally imagine events and conditions of existence that are contrary to the causal principle as he knows it will never enrich…
• The assumption of an absolute determinism is the essential foundation of every scientific enquiry.
• The whole strenuous intellectual work of an industrious research worker would appear, after all, in vain and hopeless, if he were not occasionally through some…
• We cannot rest and sit down lest we rust and decay. Health is maintained only through work. And as it is with all life so…
• New scientific ideas never spring from a communal body, however organized, but rather from the head of an individually inspired researcher who struggles with his…
• As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as…
• Hitherto the principle of causality was universally accepted as an indispensable postulate of scientific research, but now we are told by some physicists that it…
• The goal is nothing other than the coherence and completeness of the system not only in respect of all details, but also in respect of…
• I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we…
• This is one of man's oldest riddles. How can the independence of human volition be harmonized with the fact that we are integral parts of…
• Those [scientists] who dislike entertaining contradictory thoughts are unlikely to enrich their science with new ideas.
• Physical changes take place continuously, while chemical changes take place discontinuously. Physics deals chiefly with continuous varying quantities, while chemistry deals chiefly with whole numbers.
• Both religion and natural science require a belief in God for their activities, to the former He is the starting point, and to the latter…
• Science does not mean an idle resting upon a body of certain knowledge; it means unresting endeavor and continually progressing development toward an end which…
• Science enhances the moral value of life, because it furthers a love of truth and reverence-love of truth displaying itself in the constant endeavor to…
• We are in a position similar to that of a mountaineer who is wandering over uncharted spaces, and never knows whether behind the peak which…
• Experimenters are the shock troops of science.
• I had always looked upon the search for the absolute as the noblest and most worth while task of science.
• The Theory of Relativity confers an absolute meaning on a magnitude which in classical theory has only a relative significance: the velocity of light. The…

Browse Max Planck Quotes by Category