Scientists |
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The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new
discoveries, is not "Eureka!," but "That's funny."
Education is more important that acquisition. CITATION
The neural processes underlying that which we call
creativity have nothing to do with rationality.
I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific
problems is just as dumb as the next guy.
If everything goes as planned, you don't learn anything.
There are children playing in the street who could solve some of my top
problems in physics, because they have modes of sensory perception that I
lost long ago.
Intuition will tell the thinking mind where to look next. Ninety-nine percent of the failures come from people who have the habit of
making excuses. I think naked in my car. God
not only plays dice with the universe, but
sometimes throws them where we can't see them.
I wonder why I wonder why. I
wonder why I wonder.
I wonder why I wonder why I wonder why I wonder!
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same
God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.
Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing.
All new ideas have an element of foolishness when they are first conceived. |
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Einstein... does not remain attached to
classical principles, and when presented with a
problem in physics he quickly envisages
all its possibilities. This leads immediately in his mind to the prediction of new phenomena which may one day be verified by
experiment. We know more than we think we know. Evolution is the basis of biology, biology is the basis of medicine. You're messing with something important when you mess with evolution. There children playing in the streets who could solve some of my top
problems in physics, because they have modes of sensory perception that I lost long ago. Far more marvelous is the truth than any
artist of the past imagined.
Why do poets of the present not speak of it? The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas. If you want to kill any idea in the world, get a committee working on it. You can expect no influence if you are not susceptible to influence. There is clearly a wide range of musical talent, but there is much to
suggest an innate musicality in virtually everyone. You can never tell when new things may be starting up from improbably lines of
work. If I have seen further it is by standing
on the shoulders of giants. Every time you understand something, religion
becomes less likely.
The important thing in science is not so much to obtain new facts as to
discover new ways of thinking about them. |
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Chance favors the prepared mind.
Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.
The more the universe seems
comprehensible, the more it seems pointless. There is an uneasiness about thinking, about intellectual
endeavor... that permeates
the society, and that is clearly extremely dangerous. Once we get better at living together,
I don't think that we'll feel the need for ideas like immortality. In order to succeed I try to fail as fast as I can. It is not the strongest of the species that survives, not the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change. An expert is someone who knows some of the worst mistakes
that can be made in his subject and how to avoid them. A world of facts lies outside and beyond the world of words. Give me a lever long enough, and a prop strong enough. |
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Winning a Nobel Prize is no big deal,
but winning it with an IQ of 124 is really something. Accept truth. It is by intuition that we discover and by logic that we
prove. To make a great dream come true, you must first have a
great dream. An essential aspect of creativity is not being afraid to fail. Creativity is a characteristic given to all human beings at birth. Maybe that's why young people make success. They don't know enough. Because when
you know enough, it's obvious that every idea that you have is no good. |
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I long to set foot where no man has trod before. Anatomists today would be hard put to identify the brain of a visual
artist, a writer, or a mathematician--but they could recognize the brain of
a professional musician without a moment's hesitation. We are an intelligent species and the use of our intelligence quite properly gives us pleasure. In this respect, the brain is
like a muscle. When it is in use we feel very good. I was born not knowing and have only had a little time to change that here and
there. There is no adequate defense, except stupidity, against the impact of a new idea. A prudent question is one-half of wisdom. It might be something of a temptation to take over my brain, on paper,
but I cannot imagine doing so in real life. God plays dice with the
universe but they're loaded dice. The great business of life is to be, to do, to do without, and to depart. |
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The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do. Basic research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing. In any field, find the strangest thing and then explore it. Doubt is not to be feared but welcomed. You cannot teach a man anything.; you can only help him to find it for
himself.
The scientist does not study nature because it is useful;
he studies it because he delights in it and because it is beautiful.
If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every
problem as a nail. |
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Discovery consists of looking at the same thing as everyone else
and thinking something different. Preferring a search for objective reality over revelation is
another way of satisfying religious hunger. You will never find the time for anything. If you want time, you have to
make it. Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever
conceived. Go out and buy yourself a five-cent pencil and a ten-cent notebook and begin to write down some million-dollar ideas for yourself. Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully
as when they do it from religious conviction. Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.
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Comments, corrections, and new quotations |
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