Motivational Quotes

Physics

It would be a poor thing to be an atom in a universe without physicists, and physicists are made of atoms. A physicist is an atom's way of knowing about atoms.

- Wald, George

Best Quotes about Physics

Metaphysics is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe upon instinct; but to find these reasons is no less an instinct.

Bradley, Francis H.

For the truth of the conclusions of physical science, observation is the supreme Court of Appeal. It does not follow that every item which we confidently accept as physical knowledge has actually been certified by the Court; our confidence is that it would be certified by the Court if it were submitted. But it does follow that every item of physical knowledge is of a form which might be submitted to the Court. It must be such that we can specify (although it may be impracticable to carry out) an observational procedure which would decide whether it is true or not. Clearly a statement cannot be tested by observation unless it is an assertion about the results of observation. Every item of physical knowledge must therefore be an assertion of what has been or would be the result of carrying out a specified observational procedure.

Sir Arthur Eddington

It is impossible to trap modern physics into predicting anything with perfect determinism because it deals with probabilities from the outset.

Sir Arthur Eddington

Metaphysics abstracts the mind from the senses, and the poetic faculty must submerge the whole mind in the senses. Metaphysics soars up to universals, and the poetic faculty must plunge deep into particulars.

Vico, Giambattista

When he to whom a person speaks does not understand, and he who speaks does not understand himself, that is metaphysics.

Voltaire

It would be a poor thing to be an atom in a universe without physicists, and physicists are made of atoms. A physicist is an atom's way of knowing about atoms.

Wald, George

In physics, your solution should convince a reasonable person. In math, you have to convince a person who's trying to make trouble. Ultimately, in physics, you're hoping to convince Nature. And I've found Nature to be pretty reasonable.

Frank Wilczek

Four thousand volumes of metaphysics will not teach us what the soul is.

Voltaire

We must be physicists in order to be creative since so far codes of values and ideals have been constructed in ignorance of physics or even in contradiction to physics.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

10.

Metaphysics means nothing but an unusually obstinate effort to think clearly.

James, William

11.

I ask you to look both ways. For the road to a knowledge of the stars leads through the atom; and important knowledge of the atom has been reached through the stars.

Sir Arthur Eddington

12.

A metaphysician is one who, when you remark that twice two makes four, demands to know what you mean by twice, what by two, what by makes, and what by four. For asking such questions metaphysicians are supported in oriental luxury in the universities, and respected as educated and intelligent men.

Mencken, H. L.

13.

In some sort of crude sense, which no vulgarity, no humor, no overstatement can quite extinguish, the physicists have known sin; and this is a knowledge which they cannot lose.

Oppenheimer, Julius Robert

14.

We have found a strange footprint on the shores of the unknown. We have devised profound theories, one after another, to account for its origins. At last, we have succeeded in reconstructing the creature that made the footprint. And lo! It is our own.

Sir Arthur Eddington

15.

Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine.

Sir Arthur Eddington

16.

Two half philosophers will probably never a whole metaphysician make.

Bachelard, Gaston

17.

That's metaphysics, my dear fellow. It's forbidden me by my doctor, my stomach won't take it.

Pasternak, Boris

18.

Something unknown is doing we don't know what.

Sir Arthur Eddington

19.

No atomic physicist has to worry, people will always want to kill other people on a mass scale. Sure, he's got the fridge full of sausages and spring water.

Burroughs, William S.

20.

Metaphysics is a restaurant where they give you a thirty thousand page menu, and no food.

Pirsig, Robert M.

21.

I was thrown out of N.Y.U. my freshman year for cheating on my metaphysics final. You know, I looked within the soul of the boy sitting next to me.

Allen, Woody