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Niels Bohr quotes - page 2
If anybody says he can think about quantum physics without getting giddy, that only shows he has not understood the first thing about them.
Niels Bohr
We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question that divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct.
Niels Bohr
However far the phenomena transcend the scope of classical physical explanation, the account of all evidence must be expressed in classical terms. The argument is that simply by the word "experiment" we refer to a situation where we can tell others what we have done and what we have learned and that, therefore, the account of the experimental arrangement and of the results of the observations must be expressed in unambiguous language with suitable application of the terminology of classical physics.
Niels Bohr
For a parallel to the lesson of atomic theory regarding the limited applicability of such customary idealizations, we must in fact turn to quite other branches of science, such as psychology, or even to that kind of epistemological problems with which already thinkers like Buddha and Lao Tzu have been confronted, when trying to harmonize our position as spectators and actors in the great drama of existence.
Niels Bohr
I am absolutely prepared to talk about the spiritual life of an electronic computer: to state that it is reflecting or is in a bad mood... The question whether the machine really feels or ponders, or whether it merely looks as though it did, is of course absolutely meaningingless.
Niels Bohr
The opposite of every great truth is also a great truth.
Niels Bohr
We must be clear that when it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry.
Niels Bohr
Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real.
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
Two sorts of truth: profound truths recognized by the fact that the opposite is also a profound truth, in contrast to trivialities where opposites are obviously absurd.
Niels Bohr
It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how Nature is. Physics concerns what we say about Nature.
Niels Bohr
I consider those developments in physics during the last decades which have shown how problematical such concepts as "objective" and "subjective" are, a great liberation of thought.
Niels Bohr
Physics is to be regarded not so much as the study of something a priori given, but rather as the development of methods of ordering and surveying human experience.
Niels Bohr
We are suspended in language in such a way that we cannot say what is up and what is down. The word "reality" is also a word, a word which we must learn to use correctly.
Niels Bohr
Nowadays, the individual seems to be able to choose the spiritual framework of his thoughts and actions quite freely, and this freedom reflects the fact that the boundaries between the various cultures and societies are beginning to become more fluid. But even when an individual tries to attain the greatest possible degree of independence, he will still be swayed by the existing spiritual structures - consciously or unconsciously.
Niels Bohr
The objective world of nineteenth-century science was, as we know today, an ideal, limiting case, but not the whole reality.
Niels Bohr
I feel very much like Dirac: the idea of a personal God is foreign to me. But we ought to remember that religion uses language in quite a different way from science. The language of religion is more closely related to the language of poetry than to the language of science.
Niels Bohr
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
I can quite understand why we cannot speak about the content of religion in an objectifying language. The fact that different religions try to express this content in quite distinct spiritual forms is no real objection. Perhaps we ought to look upon these different forms as complementary descriptions which, though they exclude one another, are needed to convey the rich possibilities flowing from man's relationship with the central order.
Niels Bohr
We depend on our words... Our task is to communicate experience and ideas to others.
Niels Bohr
In mathematics we can take our inner distance from the content of our statements. In the final analysis mathematics is a mental game that we can play or not play as we choose. Religion, on the other hand, deals with ourselves, with our life and death; its promises are meant to govern our actions and thus, at least indirectly, our very existence. We cannot just look at them impassively from the outside. Moreover, our attitude to religious questions cannot be separated from our attitude to society.
Niels Bohr
In that sense, religion helps to make social life more harmonious; its most important task is to remind us, in the language of pictures and parables, of the wider framework within which our life is set.
Niels Bohr
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