144 Quotes by Niels Bohr

You can recognize a small truth because its opposite is a falsehood. The opposite of a great truth is another truth.

There are trivial truths and there are great truths. The opposite of a trivial truth is plainly false. The opposite of a great truth is also true.

The meaning of life consists in the fact that it makes no sense to say that life has no meaning.

We must be clear that when it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry. The poet, too, is not nearly so concerned with describing facts as with creating images and establishing mental connections.[About describing atomic models in the language of classical physics:]

How wonderful that we have met with a paradox. Now we have some hope of making progress.

If you can fathom quantum mechanics without getting dizzy, you don't get itEt kvantebitte spring nærmere supercomputeren

You must come to Copenhagen to work with us. We like people who can actually perform thought experiments!

I myself find the division of the world into an objective and a subjective side much too arbitrary. The fact that religions through the ages have spoken in images, parables, and paradoxes means simply that there are no other ways of grasping the reality to which they refer. But that does not mean that it is not a genuine reality. And splitting this reality into an objective and a. subjective side won't get us very far.

The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness.