Philosophy Quotes

Questions about meaning, existence, and truth from thinkers who spent their lives searching for answers.

43879 quotes

B
"Our thoughts are not confined to our brains but extend into the world."
Bohm, David
B
"Reality is not what we think it is, but what we participate in creating."
Bohm, David
B
"The greatest discovery is that consciousness and reality are one."
Bohm, David
D
"One cannot escape the feeling that these mathematical formulas have an independent existence and an intelligence of their own."
Dirac, Paul
D
"To live as a theoretical physicist is to live at the boundary between imagination and certainty."
Dirac, Paul
F
"What is and what should never be are two entirely different things in nature."
Feynman, Richard
F
"I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as anyone else."
Feynman, Richard
F
"People are very eager to believe that if only one thing were changed, everything would be okay."
Feynman, Richard
F
"I think the problem with all the talk about science is that nobody is listening."
Feynman, Richard
B
"We must be careful not to mistake mathematics for reality."
Bell, John Stewart
B
"To understand nature, we must first understand our own limitations in understanding."
Bell, John Stewart
B
"Quantum mechanics works perfectly, but what does it mean?"
Bell, John Stewart
B
"We build theories to understand nature, but nature may be stranger than our theories."
Bell, John Stewart
B
"We should never confuse the map with the territory."
Bell, John Stewart
B
"The standard interpretation of quantum mechanics leaves many questions unanswered."
Bell, John Stewart
B
"Physical reality is more subtle than our everyday language can express."
Bell, John Stewart
B
"Nature's ultimate laws may be fundamentally different from what we currently imagine."
Bell, John Stewart
B
"The universe operates according to principles that transcend human intuition."
Bell, John Stewart
B
"The interconnectedness revealed by quantum mechanics suggests a universe of profound unity."
Bell, John Stewart
B
"Nature's laws are universal, but their interpretation remains open to debate."
Bell, John Stewart
H
"I am now convinced that theoretical physics is actual philosophy."
Heisenberg, Werner
H
"I have repeatedly said that in my view the answer to this question is no."
Heisenberg, Werner
H
"Every sentence I utter must be understood not as an affirmation but as a question."
Heisenberg, Werner
H
"The physical picture is not the reality itself."
Heisenberg, Werner
H
"Language is primarily a tool for action, only secondarily a tool for description."
Heisenberg, Werner
H
"One cannot understand the laws of nature without understanding that they are thoughts."
Heisenberg, Werner
H
"Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control."
Heisenberg, Werner
H
"Thoughts are like shadows."
Heisenberg, Werner
S
"The plurality that we perceive is only an appearance; it is not real."
Schrödinger, Erwin
S
"Consciousness and the laws of nature are intertwined in ways we have yet to fully understand."
Schrödinger, Erwin