black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

I had always looked upon the search for the absolute as the noblest and most worth while task of science.

Max Planck

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
A scientist is happy, not in resting on his attainments but in the steady acquisition of fresh knowledge.
MAX PLANCK

Fresh Happiness Knowledge 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
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
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
All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force.
MAX PLANCK

Existence Force Origin Science Virtue
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
Every advance in knowledge brings us face to face with the mystery of our own being.
MAX PLANCK

Face Knowledge Live Mystery Ourselves
Experiment is the only means of knowledge at our disposal. Everything else is poetry, imagination.
MAX PLANCK

Experiment Imagination Knowledge Poetry
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
There is no matter as such—mind is the matrix of all matter.
MAX PLANCK

Mindset Science
The entire world we apprehend through our senses is no more than a tiny fragment in the vastness of Nature.
MAX PLANCK

Fragment Nature Vast World
No burden is so heavy for a man to bear as a succession of happy days.
MAX PLANCK

Day Happiness heavy Lost Man
Science advances funeral by funeral.
MAX PLANCK

Death Funeral One Liner Science
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.
MAX PLANCK

Black Myself Representation Research Search Solution
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
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
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
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
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
Religion belongs to the realm that is inviolable before the law of causation and therefore closed to science.
MAX PLANCK

Law Religion 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
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.
MAX PLANCK

Culture Goal People Place Respect Time
Insight must precede application.
MAX PLANCK

Action Application Knowledge One Liner Wisdom
The scientist needs an artistically creative imagination.
MAX PLANCK

Artist Creation Imagination Need 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

I had always looked upon the search for the absolute as the noblest and most worth while task of science.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

I had always looked upon the search for the absolute as the noblest and most worth while task of science.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Max Planck Quotes