Whether in the intellectual pursuits of science or in the mystical pursuits of the spirit, the light beckons ahead, and the purpose surging in our nature responds.
Time is the supreme Law of nature.
Who will observe the observers?
Events do not happen; they are just there, and we come across them.
A hundred thousand million Stars make one Galaxy; A hundred thousand million Galaxies make one Universe. The figures may not be very trustworthy, but I think they give a correct impression.
Something unknown is doing we don’t know what-that is what our theory amounts to.
Oh leave the Wise our measures to collate. One thing at least is certain, light has weight. One thing is certain and the rest debate. Light rays, when near the Sun, do not go straight.
It is also a good rule not to put overmuch confidence in the observational results that are put forward until they are confirmed by theory.
Every body continues in its state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line, except insofar as it doesn’t.
We often think that when we have completed our study of one we know all about two, because ‘two’ is ‘one and one.’ We forget that we still have to make a study of ‘and.’
There was a time when we wanted to be told what an electron is. The question was never answered. No familiar conceptions can be woven around the electron; it belongs to the waiting list.
Schrodinger’s wave-mechanics is not a physical theory but a dodge-and a very good dodge too.
When an investigator has developed a formula which gives a complete representation of the phenomena within a certain range, he may be prone to satisfaction. Would it not be wiser if he should say ‘Foiled again! I can find out no more about Nature along this line.’
The helium which we handle must have been put together at some time and some place. We do not argue with the critic who urges that the stars are not hot enough for this process; we tell him to go and find a hotter place.
The quest of the absolute leads into the four-dimensional world.
There is no space without aether, and no aether which does not occupy space.
Our ultimate analysis of space leads us not to a “here” and a “there,” but to an extension such as that which relates “here” and “there.” To put the conclusion rather crudely-space is not a lot of points close together; it is a lot of distances interlocked.
What we makes of the world must be largely dependent on the sense-organs that we happen to possess. How the world must have changed since the man came to rely on his eyes rather than his nose.
Falling in love is one of the activities forbidden that tiresome person, the consistently reasonable man.
If your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.