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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

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
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 regard as existing, postulates consciousness.
MAX PLANCK

Conscious Existence Fundamental Myself Regard Spiritual Talk
Insight must precede application.
MAX PLANCK

Action Application Knowledge One Liner Wisdom
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.
MAX PLANCK

Errors Old Progress Science Theory
It is never possible to predict a physical occurrence with unlimited precision.
MAX PLANCK

Limitation Possible Prediction
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
I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as a derivative of consciousness.
MAX PLANCK

Conscious Fundamental Myself Regard
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
Religion belongs to the realm that is inviolable before the law of causation and therefore closed to science.
MAX PLANCK

Law Religion Science
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
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
What seems today inconceivable will appear one day, from a higher stand point, quite simple and harmonious.
MAX PLANCK

Appearance Harmony Quite Simplicity
Experimenters are the shock troops of science.
MAX PLANCK

Experiment Science
There can never be any real opposition between religion and science; for the one is the complement of the other.
MAX PLANCK

Oneself Reality Religion Science
No burden is so heavy for a man to bear as a succession of happy days.
MAX PLANCK

Day Happiness heavy Lost Man
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 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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