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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

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
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.
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Independent Invention Law Nature Order Reality World
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
It is never possible to predict a physical occurrence with unlimited precision.
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Limitation Possible Prediction
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
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
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
Insight must precede application.
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Action Application Knowledge One Liner Wisdom
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
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.
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Health Life Maintain Relative Rest Science Struggle
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.
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Answer Born Death Greatness Let Go Science
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
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
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.
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Energy Intelligence Research Science Spirit
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.
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Happiness Himself Possession Rich Seek Truth
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.
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Death Hands Science Stop Terrible Work
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.
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Assumption Existence Future Law Physical Right
Science advances one funeral at a time.
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Death Funeral One Liner Science Time
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
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
A new truth always has to conend with many difficulties. If it were not so, it would have been discovered much sooner.
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Difficult Discover Truth
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
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
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
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
All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force.
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Existence Force Origin Science Virtue
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

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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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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Popular Authors

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