Wolfgang Pauli

Physics Austrian-American 1900 – 1958 673 quotes

Formulated the exclusion principle

Most quoted

"When I was young, I thought I was the best formalist of my time. I thought I was a revolutionary. When the big problems would come, I would be the one to solve them. But then the great revolution came, it was Heisenberg and Dirac who made it. I was only a classicist."

— from Self-reflection

"The layman always means, when he says 'reality,' that he is speaking of something self-evidently known; whereas to me it seems the most important and exceedingly difficult task of our time is to work on the construction of a new idea of reality."

— from Letter to Markus Fierz, 1954

"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."

— from Attributed to Max Planck, but often quoted by Pauli in discussions of scientific change

All quotes by Wolfgang Pauli (673)

The sun darkened.

Eclipse 1948

The moon blood.

Red 1953

Stars fall to earth.

Meteor 1952

The sky rolled up.

Scroll 1951

The mountains and islands moved.

Earthquake 1950

The great day of wrath.

Apocalypse 1949

Who shall stand?

Question 1952

The silence in heaven.

Pause 1951

Half an hour of silence.

Time 1950

The seven angels with trumpets.

Herald 1948

The censer cast to earth.

Fire 1953

Voices, thunder, lightning, earthquake.

Storm 1952

The first trumpet: hail and fire.

Plague 1951

Mixed with blood.

Sacrifice 1950

The third part of trees burned.

Destruction 1949

All green grass.

Life 1952

The sea became blood.

Second trumpet 1951

The third part of sea creatures died.

Death 1950

Ships destroyed.

Mountain burning 1948

The third part of rivers wormwood.

Third trumpet 1953