Max Planck Quotes & Sayings

When I began my physical studies [in Munich in 1874] and sought advice from my venerable teacher Philipp von Jolly ... he portrayed to me physics as a highly developed, almost fully matured science ... Possibly in one or another nook there would perhaps be a dust particle or a small bubble to be examined and classified, but the system as a whole stood there fairly secured, and theoretical physics approached visibly that degree of perfection which, for example, geometry has had already for centuries. — Max Planck

The man who cannot occasionally imagine events and conditions of existence that are contrary to the causal principle as he knows it will never enrich his science by the addition of a new idea. — Max Planck

Religion and natural science are fighting a joint battle in an incessant, never relaxing crusade against skepticism and against dogmatism, against unbelief and superstition ... [and therefore] 'On to God! — Max Planck

Ego is the immediate dictate of human consciousness. — Max Planck

The Theory of Relativity confers an absolute meaning on a magnitude which in classical theory has only a relative significance: the velocity of light. The velocity of light is to the Theory of Relativity as the elementary quantum of action is to the Quantum Theory: it is its absolute core. — Max Planck

We are in a position similar to that of a mountaineer who is wandering over uncharted spaces, and never knows whether behind the peak which he sees in front of him and which he tries to scale there may not be another peak still beyond and higher up. — Max Planck

New scientific ideas never spring from a communal body, however organized, but rather from the head of an individually inspired researcher who struggles with his problems in lonely thought and unites all his thought on one single point which is his whole world for the moment. — Max Planck

Scientific discovery and scientific knowledge have been achieved only by those who have gone in pursuit of it without any practical purpose whatsoever in view. — Max Planck

Truth never triumphs-its opponents just die out, — Max Planck

There is a real world independent of our senses; the laws of nature were not invented by man, but forced on him by the natural world. They are the expression of a natural world order. — Max Planck

Science progresses not by convincing the adherents of old theories that they are wrong, but by allowing enough time to pass so that a new generation can arise unencumbered by the old errors. — Max Planck

Nature prefers the more probable states to the less probable because in nature processes take place in the direction of greater probability. Heat goes from a body at higher temperature to a body at lower temperature because the state of equal temperature distribution is more probable than a state of unequal temperature distribution. — Max Planck

The goal is nothing other than the coherence and completeness of the system not only in respect of all details, but also in respect of all physicists of all places, all times, all peoples, and all cultures. — Max Planck

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.' — Max Planck

No burden is so heavy for a man to bear as a succession of happy days. — Max Planck

Science enhances the moral value of life, because it furthers a love of truth and reverence - love of truth displaying itself in the constant endeavor to arrive at a more exact knowledge of the world of mind and matter around us, and reverence, because every advance in knowledge brings us face to face with the mystery of our own being. — Max Planck

A new truth always has to conend with many difficulties. If it were not so, it would have been discovered much sooner. — Max Planck

Science advances one funeral at a time. — Max Planck

I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness. — Max Planck

The worth of a new idea is invariably determined, not by the degree of its intuitiveness-which incidentally, is to a major extent a matter of experience and habit-but by the scope and accuracy of the individual laws to the discovery of which it eventually leads. — Max Planck

It is not the possession of truth, but the success which attends the seeking after it, that enriches the seeker and brings happiness to him. — Max Planck

If E is considered to be a continuously divisible quantity, this distribution is possible in infinitely many ways. We consider, however-this is the most essential point of the whole calculation-E to be composed of a well-defined number of equal parts and use thereto the constant of nature h = 6.55 x10-27 erg sec. This constant multiplied by the common frequency ? of the resonators gives us the energy element E in erg, and dividing E by E we get the number P of energy elements which must be divided over the N resonators. — Max Planck

The highest court is in the end one's own conscience and conviction - that goes for you and for Einstein and every other physicist - and before any science there is first of all belief. — Max Planck

What seems today inconceivable will appear one day, from a higher stand point, quite simple and harmonious. — Max Planck

Science advances funeral by funeral — Max Planck

A new scientific truth is usually not propagated in such a way that opponents become convinced and discard their previous views. No, the adversaries eventually die off, and the upcoming generation is familiarised anew with the truth. — Max Planck

Scientific work will never stop, and it would be terrible if it did. If there were no more problems, you would put your hands in your pockets and your head on a pillow and would work no more. In science rest is stagnation, rest is death. — Max Planck

It is never possible to predict a physical occurrence with unlimited precision. — Max Planck

Both religion and natural science require a belief in God for their activities, to the former He is the starting point, and to the latter the goal of every thought process. To the former He is the foundation, to the latter, the crown of the edifice of every generalized world view. — Max Planck

The assumption of an absolute determinism is the essential foundation of every scientific enquiry. — Max Planck

All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together.
We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter. — Max Planck

When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. — Max Planck

Before an experiment can be performed, it must be planned - the question to nature must be formulated before being posed. Before the result of a measurement can be used, it must be interpreted - nature's answer must be understood properly. These two tasks are those of the theorist, who finds himself always more and more dependent on the tools of abstract mathematics. Of course, this does not mean that the experimenter does not also engage in theoretical deliberations. The foremost classical example of a major achievement produced by such a division of labor is the creation of spectrum analysis by the joint efforts of Robert Bunsen, the experimenter, and Gustav Kirchhoff, the theorist. Since then, spectrum analysis has been continually developing and bearing ever richer fruit. — Max Planck

Physical changes take place continuously, while chemical changes take place discontinuously. Physics deals chiefly with continuous varying quantities, while chemistry deals chiefly with whole numbers. — Max Planck

An experiment is a question which science poses to Nature and a measurement is the recording of Nature's answer. — Max Planck

An indispensable hypothesis, even though still far from being a guarantee of success, is however the pursuit of a specific aim, whose lighted beacon, even by initial failures, is not betrayed. — Max Planck

It is impossible to make a clear cut between science, religion, and art. The whole is never equal simply to the sum of its various parts. — Max Planck

Experiment is the only means of knowledge at our disposal. Everything else is poetry, imagination. — Max Planck

Thus, the photons which constitute a ray of light behave like intelligent human beings: out of all possible curves they always select the one which will take them most quickly to their goal. — Max Planck

There is no matter as such - mind is the matrix of all matter. — Max Planck

Whence come I and whither go I? That is the great unfathomable question, the same for every one of us. Science has no answer to it. — Max Planck

It was not by accident that the greatest thinkers of all ages were deeply religious souls. — Max Planck

Farsighted theologians are now working to mine the eternal metal from the teachings of Jesus and to forge it for all time. — Max Planck

The whole strenuous intellectual work of an industrious research worker would appear, after all, in vain and hopeless, if he were not occasionally through some striking facts to find that he had, at the end of all his criss-cross journeys, at last accomplished at least one step which was conclusively nearer the truth. — Max Planck

This is one of man's oldest riddles. How can the independence of human volition be harmonized with the fact that we are integral parts of a universe which is subject to the rigid order of nature's laws? — Max Planck

A scientist is happy, not in resting on his attainments but in the steady acquisition of fresh knowledge. — Max Planck

What led me to my science and what fascinated me from a young age was the, by no means self-evident, fact that our laws of thought agree with the regularities found in the succession of impressions we receive from the external world, that it is thus possible for the human being to gain enlightenment regarding these regularities by means of pure thought — Max Planck

Experimenters are the shock troops of science. — Max Planck

There can never be any real opposition between religion and science; for the one is the complement of the other. — Max Planck

Science ... means unresting endeavor and continually progressing development toward an aim which the poetic intuition may apprehend, but the intellect can never fully grasp. — Max Planck

We cannot rest and sit down lest we rust and decay. Health is maintained only through work. And as it is with all life so it is with science. We are always struggling from the relative to the absolute. — Max Planck

Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are a part of the mystery that we are trying to solve. — Max Planck

We have no right to assume that any physical laws exist, or if they have existed up to now, that they will continue to exist in a similar manner in the future. — Max Planck

An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents: What does happen is that the opponents gradually die out. — Max Planck

A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. — Max Planck

In all my research I have never come across matter. To me the term matter implies a bundle of energy which is given form by an intelligent spirit. — Max Planck

The entire world we apprehend through our senses is no more than a tiny fragment in the vastness of Nature. — Max Planck

[I do not believe] in a personal God, let alone a Christian God. — Max Planck

Religion belongs to the realm that is inviolable before the law of causation and therefore closed to science. — Max Planck

Those [scientists] who dislike entertaining contradictory thoughts are unlikely to enrich their science with new ideas. — Max Planck

The spectral density of black body radiation ... represents something absolute, and since the search for the absolutes has always appeared to me to be the highest form of research, I applied myself vigorously to its solution. — Max Planck

I had always looked upon the search for the absolute as the noblest and most worth while task of science. — Max Planck

Hitherto the principle of causality was universally accepted as an indispensable postulate of scientific research, but now we are told by some physicists that it must be thrown overboard. The fact that such an extraordinary opinion should be expressed in responsible scientific quarters is widely taken to be significant of the all-round unreliability of human knowledge. This indeed is a very serious situation. — Max Planck