Max Planck

Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty — a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trappings of painting or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show.

The man who has not passed through the bitter experience of doubt, has not made a single step forward in science.

The creative scientist has to be a man of faith. He must have faith in his results, and in the laws of nature.

Physics is a branch of knowledge which aims at the discovery of the laws governing the phenomena of nature.

Anybody who has been seriously engaged in scientific work of any kind realizes that over the entrance to the gates of the temple of science are written the words: 'Ye must have faith.'

The quantum hypothesis will never make the slightest sense to anyone who cannot accept the existence of a real, objective world independent of our observations.

Thermodynamics is a funny subject. The first time you go through it, you don't understand it at all. The second time you go through it, you think you understand it, except for one or two small points. The third time you go through it, you know you don't understand it, but by that time you are so used to it, you don't care.

The pioneer feels nature as an enemy, or as a force to be conquered.

The greatest joy of a scientist is to see a new truth emerge.

There can be no such thing as a religion without a God.

What is the good of a scientific discovery that does not make a difference in everyday life?

The highest value of human life lies in its service to humanity.

The world of sense experience is not the only world.

A scientific truth is not a truth that is true in all possible worlds, but a truth that is true in our world.

We cannot rest content with an explanation of natural phenomena which does not connect them ultimately with the spiritual.

I learned more from my professors in one year than I have from all the books I've read.

The total number of particles in the universe is so large that it is impossible to count them.

The quantum theory is a theory of the greatest simplicity and beauty.

My original decision to devote myself to science was a direct result of the discovery, which has never ceased to fill me with enthusiasm, that the laws of nature are accessible to human thought.

I started from the assumption that the energy of an oscillator is quantized. I did this in an act of desperation.