Quotes by Niels Bohr

• Every great and deep difficulty bears in itself its own solution. It forces us to change our thinking in order to find it.
• No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical.
• Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think.
• It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how Nature is. Physics concerns what we say about Nature.
• If quantum mechanics hasn't profoundly shocked you, you haven't understood it yet.
• If anybody says he can think about quantum physics without getting giddy, that only shows he has not understood the first thing about them.
• How wonderful that we have met with a paradox. Now we have some hope of making progress.
• Every sentence I utter must be understood not as an affirmation, but as a question.
• Einstein, stop telling God what to do!
• An expert is someone who knows some of the worst mistakes, which can be made, in a very narrow field.
• An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made, in a narrow field.
• A physicist is just an atom's way of looking at itself.
• Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real.
• Your theory is crazy, but it's not crazy enough to be true.
• The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth.
• Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future.
• Technology has advanced more in the last thirty years than in the previous two thousand. The exponential increase in advancement will only continue. Anthropological Commentary The opposite of a trivial truth is false; the opposite of a great truth is also true.
• The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness.
• There are some things so serious you have to laugh at them.
• There are trivial truths and the great truths. The opposite of a trivial truth is plainly false. The opposite of a great truth is also true.
• We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question which divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct. My own feeling is that it is not crazy enough.
• When it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry. The poet, too, is not nearly so concerned with describing facts as with creating images.