87 Quotes by Arthur Eddington

If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell's equations-then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation-well these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.

An ocean traveler has even more vividly the impression that the ocean is made of waves than that it is made of water.

Whatever else there may be in our nature, responsibility toward truth is one of its attributes.

The idea of a universal mind or Logos would be, I think, a fairly plausible inference from the present state of scientific theory.

We have found that where science has progressed the farthest, the mind has but regained from nature that which the mind put into nature.

It is one thing for the human mind to extract from the phenomena of nature the laws which it has itself put into them; it may be a far harder thing to extract laws over which it has no control.