31 Quotes by Enrico Fermi

There's two possible outcomes: if the result confirms the hypothesis, then you've made a discovery. If the result is contrary to the hypothesis, then you've made a discovery.

It is no good to try to stop knowledge from going forward.

It does not say in the Bible that all laws of nature are expressible linearly!

Where is everybody? Humans could theoretically colonize the galaxy in a million years or so, and if they could, astronauts from older civilizations could do the same. So why haven't they come to Earth?

An experiment disproving a prediction is discovery.

Although the problem of transmuting chemical elements into each other is much older than a satisfactory definition of the very concept of chemical element, it is well known that the first and most important step towards its solution was made only nineteen years ago by the late Lord Rutherford, who started the method of the nuclear bombardments.

When asked what he meant by a miracle: Oh, anything with a probability of less than 20%.

Young man, if I could remember the names of these particles, I would have been a botanist.

I hope it won't take long.