Max Planck Quotes

83 Sourced Quotes

No science can rest its foundation on the dependability of single human individuals.

Max Planck
It goes without saying that the laws of nature are in themselves independent of the properties of the instruments with which they are measured. Therefore in every observation of natural phenomena we must remember the principle that the reliability of the measuring apparatus must always play an important role.

Max Planck
Conscientiousness and truth are as necessary in research in pure science as in practical life.

Max Planck
Nothing is more interesting to the true theorist than a fact which directly contradicts a theory generally accepted up to that time, for this is his particular work.

Max Planck
The outside world is something independent from man, something absolute, and the quest for the laws which apply to this absolute appeared to me as the most sublime scientific pursuit in life.

Max Planck
No mathematician now-a-days sets any store on the discovery of isolated theorems, except as affording hints of an unsuspected new sphere of thought, like meteorites detached from some undiscovered planetary orb of speculation.

Max Planck
The chief law of physics, the pinnacle of the whole system is, in my opinion, the principle of least action.

Max Planck
Leibniz's theorem... sets forth fundamentally that of all the worlds that may be created, the actual world is that which contains, besides the unavoidable evil, the maximum good.

Max Planck
Science is not contemplative repose amidst knowledge already gained, but is indefatigable work and an ever progressive development.

Max Planck
In my opinion the teaching of mechanics will still have to begin with Newtonian force, just as optics begins in the sensation of colour and thermodynamics with the sensation of warmth, despite the fact that a more precise basis is substituted later on.

Max Planck
Self-determination is given to us by our consciousness and is not limited by any causal law.

Max Planck
If one wishes to obtain a definite answer from Nature one must attack the question from a more general and less selfish point of view.

Max Planck
If we did not have faith but could solve puzzle in life by an application of the human reason, what an unbearable burden life would be.

Max Planck
Is there something in the nature of man, some inner realm, that science cannot touch?.Or to speak more concretely, is there a point at which the causal line of thought ceases and beyond which science cannot go?

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
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
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 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
The quantum hypothesis will eventually find its exact expression in certain equations which will be a more exact formulation of the law of causality.

Max Planck
Religion and natural science are fighting a joint battle in an incessant, never relaxing crusade against scepticism and against dogmatism, against disbelief and against superstition, and the rallying cry in this crusade has always been, and always will be: "On to God!"

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

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

Max Planck
Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination.

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
Natural science wants man to learn, religion wants him to act.

Max Planck
No matter where and how far we look, nowhere do we find a contradiction between religion and natural science. On the contrary, we find a complete concordance in the very points of decisive importance. Religion and natural science do not exclude each other, as many contemporaries of ours would believe or fear. They mutually supplement and condition each other. The most immediate proof of the compatibility of religion and natural science, even under the most thorough critical scrutiny, is the historical fact that the very greatest natural scientists of all times — men such as Kepler, Newton, Leibniz — were permeated by a most profound religious attitude.

Max Planck
There can never be any real opposition between religion and science; for the one is the complement of the other. Every serious and reflective person realizes, I think, that the religious element in his nature must be recognized and cultivated if all the powers of the human soul are to act together in perfect balance and harmony. And indeed it was not by accident that the greatest thinkers of all ages were deeply religious souls

Max Planck