Niels Bohr Quotes

You can recognize a small truth because its opposite is a falsehood. The opposite of a great truth is another truth.

~ Niels Bohr

The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.

~ Niels Bohr

Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.

~ Niels Bohr

Those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum theory cannot possibly have understood it.

~ Niels Bohr

The very nature of the quantum theory ... forces us to regard the space-time coordination and the claim of causality, the union of which characterizes the classical theories, as complementary but exclusive features of the description, symbolizing the idealization of observation and description, respectively.

~ Niels Bohr

I myself find the division of the world into an objective and a subjective side much too arbitrary. The fact that religions through the ages have spoken in images, parables, and paradoxes means simply that there are no other ways of grasping the reality to which they refer. But that does not mean that it is not a genuine reality. And splitting this reality into an objective and a. subjective side won't get us very far.

~ Niels Bohr

It is not enough to be wrong, one must also be polite.

~ Niels Bohr

The meaning of life consists in the fact that it makes no sense to say that life has no meaning.

~ Niels Bohr

[About describing atomic models in the language of classical physics:]We must be clear that when it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry. The poet, too, is not nearly so concerned with describing facts as with creating images and establishing mental connections.

~ Niels Bohr

Every sentence I utter must be understood not as an affirmation but as a question.[A caution he gives his students, to be wary of dogmatism.]

~ Niels Bohr

Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think.

~ Niels Bohr

Your theory is crazy, but it's not crazy enough to be true.

~ Niels Bohr

How wonderful that we have met with a paradox. Now we have some hope of making progress.

~ Niels Bohr

An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made in a very narrow field.

~ Niels Bohr

The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness.

~ Niels Bohr

Einstein, stop telling God what to do!

~ Niels Bohr

While the finish given to our picture of the world by the theory of relativity has already been absorbed into the general scientific consciousness, this has scarcely occurred to the same extent with those aspects of the general problem of knowledge which have been elucidated by the quantum theory.

~ Niels Bohr

The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth.

~ Niels Bohr

Every great and deep difficulty bears in itself its own solution. It forces us to change our thinking in order to find it.

~ Niels Bohr

Technology has advanced more in the last thirty years than in the previous two thousand. The exponential increase in advancement will only continue.

~ Niels Bohr

When it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry. The poet, too, is not nearly so concerned with describing facts as with creating images.

~ Niels Bohr

Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future.

~ Niels Bohr