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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

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.
MAX PLANCK

Mystery Nature Ourselves Science Try
Science advances one funeral at a time.
MAX PLANCK

Death Funeral One Liner Science Time
Science advances funeral by funeral.
MAX PLANCK

Death Funeral One Liner 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.
MAX PLANCK

Conscience High Law Science
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
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
Experiment is the only means of knowledge at our disposal. Everything else is poetry, imagination.
MAX PLANCK

Experiment Imagination Knowledge Poetry
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
Whence come I and whither go I? That is the great unfathomable question, the same for every one of us. Science has no answer to it.
MAX PLANCK

Answer Born Death Greatness Let Go 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
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
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
There is no matter as such—mind is the matrix of all matter.
MAX PLANCK

Mindset Science
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
Experimenters are the shock troops of science.
MAX PLANCK

Experiment Science
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 assumption of an absolute determinism is the essential foundation of every scientific enquiry.
MAX PLANCK

Assumption Determination Essence Foundation
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
Ego is the immediate dictate of human consciousness.
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Consciousness Ego Human
The scientist needs an artistically creative imagination.
MAX PLANCK

Artist Creation Imagination Need Science
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
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.
MAX PLANCK

Creativity Death Important Innovation Rival Science Win
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
Truth never triumphs-its opponents just die out.
MAX PLANCK

Death Rival 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.
MAX PLANCK

Beyond Position Space
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
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

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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