Wigner, Eugene

"The physicist's task is to understand nature's grammar, not merely to memorize her vocabulary."

"There is a gulf between the intuitions of natural man and the results of careful analysis."

"The miracle is not that mathematics works so well but that nature is so profoundly mathematical."

"One cannot escape the feeling that these mathematical formulas have an independent existence and an intelligence of their own."

"The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lifts human life a little above the level of farce."

"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe."

"The understanding of nature requires both empirical observation and mathematical reasoning."

"Physics tells us something very important: in the last analysis, the world cannot be understood without understanding the nature of consciousness."

"The profound study of nature is the most fertile source of mathematical discoveries."

"Nature speaks to us in the language of mathematics, and only those who understand this language can truly read nature's book."

"Our knowledge of nature is always provisional; it is subject to revision as new evidence emerges."

"The fundamental laws of nature are simple, but their consequences are infinitely complex."

"What is important for the concept of probability is the repeatability of the experiment."

"The scientist must be prepared to abandon his most cherished beliefs when the evidence demands it."

"Mathematics is the language with which God wrote the universe."

"The task of science is not merely to describe phenomena but to explain them through underlying principles."

"In the space between stimulus and response lies our freedom, and in that freedom lies our power."

"Nature has shown us that order emerges from apparent chaos through the application of mathematical principles."

"The particle physicist discovers the fundamental constituents of matter; the cosmologist discovers the fundamental structure of the universe."

"We are drowning in information but starving for wisdom."

"The greatest discovery is that we can discover at all."

"Understanding the universe requires both intellectual humility and intellectual courage."

"The laws that govern the microscopic world are far stranger than anything philosophers imagined in their wildest speculations."

"Science progresses not by proving things right but by proving things wrong."

"The apparent stability of matter is actually a dynamic balance of forces acting at incomprehensible scales."

"A truly educated person understands that knowledge is never complete and always provisional."

"The elegance of a physical theory lies not in how much it explains but in how simply it explains it."

"Nature's most profound secrets are hidden in plain sight, waiting for minds prepared to see them."

"The physicist's job is to ask nature the right questions and listen carefully to her answers."

"Mathematics is not something discovered in nature; it is something invented by the human mind to understand nature."