| Quotations: Newton, Einstein, Galileo, Steinmetz, Franklin, Marie Curie, Francis Bacon, Euclid, Leonardo, and Plato. |
| Isaac Newton If I have
seen further than others, it is because I stood on the shoulders of
giants.
I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myselfi in now and then finding a smoother pebble or pretter shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lan undiscovered before me. Truth is ever to be found in the simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things. |
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The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful
servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has
forgotten the gift. People like you and I, though mortal of course like everyone else, do not grow old no matter how long we live...[We] never cease to stand like curious children before the great mystery into which we were born. The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind. It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity. Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom. We have to do the best we can. This is our sacred human responsibility. I think and think for months and years, ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right. I cannot conceive of a personal God who would directly influence the actions of individuals, or would directly sit in judgment on creatures of his own creation. I cannot do this in spite of the fact that mechanistic causality has, to a certain extent, been placed in doubt by modern science. [He was speaking of Quantum Mechanics and the breaking down of determinism.] My religiosity consists in a humble admiratation of the infinitely superior spirit that reveals itself in the little that we, with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality. Morality is of the highest importance. The Human Side, 1954 (Einstein, stop telling God what to do. --Niels Bohr) Teaching should be such that what is offered is perceived as a valuable gift and not as a hard duty. Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy. The pioneers of a warless world are the youth who refuse military service. The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives. Those instrumental goods which should serve to maintain the life and health of all human beings should be produced by the least possible labour of all. The search for truth is more precious than its possession. Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen. The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing. I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious. Example isn't another way to teach, it is the only way to teach. With fame I become more and more stupid, which of course is a very common phenomenon. I want to know God's thoughts...the rest are details. Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind. Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the life-long attempt to acquire it. The value of a man resides in what he gives and not in what he is capable receiving. The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once. Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted. Try not to be a person of success, but rather a person of virtue. Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is to not stop questioning. I never think of the future. It comes soon enough. The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed. I have deep faith that the principle of the universe will be beautiful and simple. Truth is what stands the test of experience. The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. Quantum mechanics is very impressive. But an inner voice tells me that it is not yet the real thing. The theory yields a lot, but it hardly brings us any closer to the secret of the Old One. In any case I am convinced that He doesn't play dice. Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocre minds. The latter cannot understand it when a [person] does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses their intelligence. Subtle is the Lord, but malicious He is not. There remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion. Scientists were rated as great heretics by the church, but they were truly religious men because of their faith in the orderliness of the universe. I do not believe that the Good Lord plays dice. When forced to summarize the general theory of relativity in one sentence: Time and space and gravitation have no separate existence from matter. We know nothing at all. All our knowledge is but the knowledge of school children. The real nature of things we shall never know. You teach me baseball and I'll teach you relativity...No we must not You will learn about relativity faster than I learn baseball. For every one billion particles of antimatter there were one billion and one particles of matter. And when the mutual annihilation was complete, one billionth remained - and that's our present universe. Nationalism is an infantile diease, the measles of mankind. I believe in standardizing automobiles, not human beings. I am neither especially clever nor especially gifted. I am only very, very curious. As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality I don't believe in mathematics. I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. If A equals success, then the formula is: A = X + Y + Z, X is work. Y is play. Z is keep your mouth shut. Try not to become a man of success but rather to become a man of value. Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new. Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater. If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it? Intellectuals solve problems; geniuses prevent them. Setting an example is not the main means of influencing others; it is the only means. The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible. When the solution is simple, God is answering. The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained liberation from the self. As punishment for my contempt for authority, Fate has made me an authority myself. I want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts; the rest are details. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death. A human being is part of the whole called by us universe , a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty... We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive. We have to do the best we can. This is our sacred human responsibility. Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many different languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see a universe marvelously arranges and obeying certain laws, but only dimly understand these laws. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations. The value of a man resides in what he gives and not in what he is capable of receiving. Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who read too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking. On the big Bang theory: "For every one billion particles of antimatter there were one billion and one particles of matter. And when the mutual annihilation was complete, one billionth remained - and that's our present universe." Imagination is more important than knowledge. He who finds though that lets us penetrate even a little deeper into the eternal mystery of nature has been granted great grace. He who, in addition, experiences the recognition, sympathy, and help of the best minds of his times, had been given almost more happiness than one man can bear. Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom. |
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It is impossible for two truths to confllict. As a result we
should not fear the assaults which come against us, whatever they be, as
long as we still have room to speak and to be heard by people who are
experts and who are not excessively affected by their own interests and
feelings. Philosophy is written in this grand book--I mean the universe--which stands continually open to our gaze, but it cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language in which it is written. It is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles, and the other geometrical figures, whithout which it is humanly impossible to understand a single word of it; without these, one is wandering about in a dark labyrinth. |
| Charles Proteous Steinmetz: There
are no foolish questions. No man becomes a fool until he stops
asking questions. The science of education is the science of
helping people find out what they want to know. |
| Marie Curie: Nothing in life
is to be feared. It is only to be understood. |
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Books must follow sciences, and not sciences books.
If in other sciences we should arrive at certainty without doubt and truth without error, it behooves us to place the foundations of our knowledge in mathematics. In questions of science the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. |
| Euclid: There is no "Royal
Road" to geometry. |
| Over Plato's Door: Let no one enter who
knows not geometry. |
| Benjamin Franklin: Do you love life? Then do
not squander time, for that's the stuff life is made of. |
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Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to Authority is not using
his intelligence, he is just using his memory. There is no higher or lower knowledge, but one only, flowing out of experimentation. |