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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

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
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.
MAX PLANCK

Culture Goal People Place Respect Time
It is not the possession of truth, but the success which attends the seeking after it, that enriches the seeker and brings happiness to him.
MAX PLANCK

Happiness Himself Possession Rich Seek Truth
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
A scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.
MAX PLANCK

Death Generation Light Science Success Truth
All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force.
MAX PLANCK

Existence Force Origin Science Virtue
A new truth always has to conend with many difficulties. If it were not so, it would have been discovered much sooner.
MAX PLANCK

Difficult Discover Truth
We have no right to assume that any physical laws exist, or if they have existed up until now, that they will continue to exist in a similar manner in the future.
MAX PLANCK

Assumption Existence Future Law Physical Right
What seems today inconceivable will appear one day, from a higher stand point, quite simple and harmonious.
MAX PLANCK

Appearance Harmony Quite Simplicity
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
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.
MAX PLANCK

Constitution Goal Human Intelligence Light Possible Quick
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 it is with science. We are always struggling from the relative to the absolute.
MAX PLANCK

Health Life Maintain Relative Rest Science Struggle
Every advance in knowledge brings us face to face with the mystery of our own being.
MAX PLANCK

Face Knowledge Live Mystery Ourselves
I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as a derivative of consciousness.
MAX PLANCK

Conscious Fundamental Myself Regard
The assumption of an absolute determinism is the essential foundation of every scientific enquiry.
MAX PLANCK

Assumption Determination Essence Foundation
The quantum hypothesis will eventually find its exact expression in certain equations which will be a more exact formulation of the law of causality.
MAX PLANCK

Expression Law Science
Scientific work will never stop, and it would be terrible if it did. If there were no more problems, you would put your hands in your pockets and your head on a pillow and would work no more. In science rest is stagnation, rest is death.
MAX PLANCK

Death Hands Science Stop Terrible Work
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
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

Beyond Position Space
Experimenters are the shock troops of science.
MAX PLANCK

Experiment Science
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.
MAX PLANCK

Art Equality Impossible Religion Science Simplicity
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.
MAX PLANCK

Betrayal Failure Goal Light Pursuit Success
Truth never triumphs-its opponents just die out.
MAX PLANCK

Death Rival Truth
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
Ego is the immediate dictate of human consciousness.
MAX PLANCK

Consciousness Ego Human
Science advances funeral by funeral.
MAX PLANCK

Death Funeral One Liner Science
All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force… We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Mind. This Mind is the matrix of all matter.
MAX PLANCK

Existence Force Intelligence Mindset Origin Virtue

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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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?

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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