Heisenberg, Werner

"The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but God is waiting for you at the bottom of the glass."

"What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning."

"An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in his field."

"The atoms or elementary particles themselves are not real; they form a world of potentialities."

"I am now convinced that theoretical physics is actual philosophy."

"What is real? Only measurements are real."

"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool."

"Nature allows only organized men to survive; she destroys the disorganized ones."

"The task is not so much to see what no one has yet seen, but to think what nobody has yet thought about that which everybody sees."

"God does not play dice."

"I have repeatedly said that in my view the answer to this question is no."

"The hope that new experimental discoveries will be made is the only thing that reconciles me to growing old."

"Science is rooted in the concept of the understandable universe."

"One should as a rule respect public opinion in so far as is necessary to avoid starvation and to prevent one's work from being suppressed, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny."

"Changes in the traditional structure of the family seem to have come along with changes in the positions of women in the workplace and in the broader society."

"If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research."

"Uncertainty is inherent in quantum mechanics."

"The more we know about atomic events, the more completely they defy such visualization."

"It is better to make a small, good thing than a large, mediocre thing."

"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."

"In an expanding universe, time is on the side of the dunce."

"The existing scientific concepts cover always only a very limited part of reality."

"Every man has the right to make an ass of himself."

"The amount of energy required to refute bull shit is an order of magnitude larger than to produce it."

"Nature is not only queerer than we suppose, it is queerer than we can suppose."

"A scientist only thinks he is working for the advancement of science; he is actually working for the advancement of his own career."

"What nature demands from us is not a belief, but only an open mind."

"The most important tool of the theoretical physicist is his waste paper basket."

"Anybody who really wants to abolish war must also abolish capitalism."

"I believe in the power of imagination more than in the power of knowledge."