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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

All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force.
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Existence Force Origin Science Virtue
Thus, the photons which constitute a ray of light behave like intelligent human beings: out of all possible curves they always select the one which will take them most quickly to their goal.
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Constitution Goal Human Intelligence Light Possible Quick
It is impossible to make a clear cut between science, religion, and art. The whole is never equal simply to the sum of its various parts.
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Art Equality Impossible Religion Science Simplicity
A scientist is happy, not in resting on his attainments but in the steady acquisition of fresh knowledge.
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Fresh Happiness Knowledge Science
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
An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents: What does happen is that the opponents gradually die out.
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Creativity Death Important Innovation Rival Science Win
Science advances one funeral at a time.
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Death Funeral One Liner Science Time
Science progresses not by convincing the adherents of old theories that they are wrong, but by allowing enough time to pass so that a new generation can arise unencumbered by the old errors.
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Errors Old Progress Science Theory
I had always looked upon the search for the absolute as the noblest and most worth while task of science.
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Noble Science Search Worth
Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are a part of the mystery that we are trying to solve.
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Mystery Nature Ourselves Science Try
The quantum hypothesis will eventually find its exact expression in certain equations which will be a more exact formulation of the law of causality.
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Expression Law Science
Religion belongs to the realm that is inviolable before the law of causation and therefore closed to science.
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Law Religion Science
It is never possible to predict a physical occurrence with unlimited precision.
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Limitation Possible Prediction
It was not by accident that the greatest thinkers of all ages were deeply religious souls.
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Accident Age Deep Greatness Religious Soul Thinking
The pioneer scientist must have “a vivid intuitive imagination, for new ideas are not generated by deduction, but by artistically creative imagination.”
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Artist Creation Ideas Imagination Intuition Science
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.
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Conscience High Law Science
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
The spectral density of black body radiation; represents something absolute, and since the search for the absolutes has always appeared to me to be the highest form of research, I applied myself vigorously to its solution.
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Black Myself Representation Research Search Solution
An indispensable hypothesis, even though still far from being a guarantee of success, is however the pursuit of a specific aim, whose lighted beacon, even by initial failures, is not betrayed.
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Betrayal Failure Goal Light Pursuit Success
There can never be any real opposition between religion and science; for the one is the complement of the other.
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Oneself Reality Religion Science
Anybody who has been seriously engaged in scientific work of any kind realizes that over the entrance to the gates of the temple of science are written the words: ‘Ye must have faith.’
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Engagement Kind Science Serious Temple Word Work Writing
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.
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Discover Knowledge Practice Pursuit Science View
Truth never triumphs-its opponents just die out.
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Death Rival Truth
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.
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Condition Ideas Imagination Man New Occasion
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?
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Harmony Human Independence Law Man Nature Old Order Subject
What seems today inconceivable will appear one day, from a higher stand point, quite simple and harmonious.
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Appearance Harmony Quite Simplicity
The assumption of an absolute determinism is the essential foundation of every scientific enquiry.
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Assumption Determination Essence Foundation

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.

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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.

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