Max Planck

The measure of a man is what he does with power.

The aim of science is to understand the world, not to explain it away.

The man who seeks to influence the course of history must not be afraid of unpopularity.

To be a good scientist, one must be a good philosopher.

The scientist's task is to find the laws of nature, not to invent them.

The human mind, no matter how highly trained, cannot grasp the universe. We are in the position of a little child, entering a huge library whose walls are covered to the ceiling with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written these books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books, a mysterious order, which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of the human mind, even the greatest and most highly trained, towards God.

The quantum theory is a confirmation of the fact that the world is not a collection of things, but a collection of processes.

The scientist does not study nature because it is useful; he studies it because he delights in it, and he delights in it because it is beautiful. If nature were not beautiful, it would not be worth knowing, and if nature were not worth knowing, life would not be worth living.

The creative scientist is one who can see things in a new way.

The world is not a collection of things, but a collection of events.

Truth never triumphs—its opponents just die out.

The quantum of action plays a fundamental role in atomic theory.

The greatest error of all is to confuse the subjective with the objective.

Science is not only a discipline of reason but also one of romance and passion.

Physical science is that department of knowledge which is concerned with the laws of nature.

The true scientist is a man of faith.

The ultimate goal of all science is to understand the universe.

The world is not a machine, but a living organism.

The history of science shows that the human mind is capable of understanding the most complex phenomena.

The universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine.