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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 he sees in front of him and which he tries to scale there may not be another peak still beyond and higher up.

Max Planck

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

Experiment Measurement Nature Question Record Science
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 his science by the addition of a new idea.
MAX PLANCK

Condition Ideas Imagination Man New Occasion
It was not by accident that the greatest thinkers of all ages were deeply religious souls.
MAX PLANCK

Accident Age Deep Greatness Religious Soul Thinking
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 a universe which is subject to the rigid order of nature’s laws?
MAX PLANCK

Harmony Human Independence Law Man Nature Old Order Subject
It is never possible to predict a physical occurrence with unlimited precision.
MAX PLANCK

Limitation Possible Prediction
No burden is so heavy for a man to bear as a succession of happy days.
MAX PLANCK

Day Happiness heavy Lost Man
Scientific discovery and scientific knowledge have been achieved only by those who have gone in pursuit of it without any practical purpose whatsoever in view.
MAX PLANCK

Discover Knowledge Practice Pursuit Science View
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 all physicists of all places, all times, all peoples, and all cultures.
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Culture Goal People Place Respect Time
What seems today inconceivable will appear one day, from a higher stand point, quite simple and harmonious.
MAX PLANCK

Appearance Harmony Quite Simplicity
In all my research I have never come across matter. To me the term matter implies a bundle of energy which is given form by an intelligent spirit.
MAX PLANCK

Energy Intelligence Research Science Spirit
There is a real world independent of our senses; the laws of nature were not invented by man, but forced on him by the natural world. They are the expression of a natural world order.
MAX PLANCK

Independent Invention Law Nature Order Reality World
The entire world we apprehend through our senses is no more than a tiny fragment in the vastness of Nature.
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Fragment Nature Vast World
All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force.
MAX PLANCK

Existence Force Origin Science Virtue
The highest court is in the end one’s own conscience and conviction-that goes for you and for Einstein and every other physicist-and before any science there is first of all belief. For me, it is belief in a complete lawfulness in everything that happens.
MAX PLANCK

Conscience High Law Science
Science advances one funeral at a time.
MAX PLANCK

Death Funeral One Liner Science Time
I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as a derivative of consciousness.
MAX PLANCK

Conscious Fundamental Myself Regard

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 he sees in front of him and which he tries to scale there may not be another peak still beyond and higher up.

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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 he sees in front of him and which he tries to scale there may not be another peak still beyond and higher up.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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