Niels Bohr Quotes

A physicist is just an atom's way of looking at itself.

Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real.

If quantum mechanics hasn't profoundly shocked you, you haven't understood it yet.

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

When we measure something we are forcing an undetermined, undefined world to assume an experimental value. We are not measuring the world, we are creating it.

I go into the Upanishads to ask questions.

There are some things so serious you have to laugh at them.

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

Nothing exists until it is measured.

No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical.

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

Einstein, stop telling God what to do!

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

A deep truth is a truth so deep that not only is it true but it's exact opposite is also true.

Address to Albert Einstein: You are not thinking. You are merely being logical.

If anybody says he can think about quantum physics without getting giddy, that only shows he has not understood the first thing about them.

Opposites are not contradictory but complementary.

If an idea does not appear bizarre, there is no hope for it.

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

The measurement we get when we measure something is not a property of the thing measured.

When searching for harmony in life one must never forget that in the drama of existence we are ourselves both actors and spectators.

It is the hallmark of any deep truth that its negation is also a deep truth.

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

Sometimes the child in one behaves a certain way and the rest of oneself follows behind, slowly shaking its head.

In the great drama of existence we are audience and actors at the same time.

It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we say about nature.

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

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

Every valuable human being must be a radical and a rebel, for what he must aim at is to make things better than they are.

What is that we human beings ultimately depend on? We depend on our words. We are suspended in language. Our task is to communicate experience and ideas to others.

There are trivial truths and the great truths. The opposite of a trivial truth is plainly false. The opposite of a great truth is also true.

We are trapped by language to such a degree that every attempt to formulate insight is a play on words.

If we couldn't laugh at ourselves, that would be the end of everything.

Accuracy and clarity of statement are mutually exclusive.

No paradox, no progress.

If you think you understand it, that only shows that you don't know the first thing about it.

Physics is the belief that a simple and consistent description of nature is possible.

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.

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

One must always do what one really cannot.

When it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry.

There is no hope for any speculation that does not look absurd at first glance.

Every sentence I utter must be understood not as an affirmation, but as a question.

Our task is not to penetrate the essence of things, the meaning of which we do not know anyway, but rather to develop concepts which allow us to talk in a productive way about phenomena in nature

We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question which divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct. My own feeling is that it is not crazy enough.

You must come to Copenhagen to work with us. We like people who can actually perform thought experiments!

Some subjects are so serious that one can only joke about them.

Isolated material particles are abstractions, their properties being definable and observable only through their interaction with other systems .

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

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