Wolfgang Pauli Quotes

Aristotle was by far a less able thinker than Plato ... he was completely overwhelmed by Plato.

Everything comes to him who knows how to wait.

There can never be two or more equivalent electrons in an atom, for which in a strong field the values of all the quantum numbers n, k1, k2 and m are the same. If an electron is present, for which these quantum numbers (in an external field) have definite values, then this state is 'occupied.'

The layman always means, when he says "reality" that he is speaking of something self-evidently known; whereas to me it seems the most important and exceedingly difficult task of our time is to work on the construction of a new idea of reality.

The fact that the author thinks slowly is not serious, but the fact that he publishes faster than he thinks is inexcusable.

That theory is worthless. It isn't even wrong!

Physics is very muddled again at the moment; it is much too hard for me anyway, and I wish I were a movie comedian or something like that and had never heard anything about physics!

If speculative ideas can not be tested, they're not science; they don't even rise to the level of being wrong.

I confess, that very different from you, I do find sometimes scientific inspiration in mysticism ... but this is counterbalanced by an immediate sense for mathematics.

What really matters for me is ... the more active role of the observer in quantum physics ... According to quantum physics the observer has indeed a new relation to the physical events around him in comparison with the classical observer, who is merely a spectator.

From the point of view of logic, my report on 'Exclusion principle and quantum mechanics' has no conclusion. I believe that it will only be possible to write the conclusion if a theory will be established which will determine the value of the fine structure constant and will thus explain the atomistic structure of electricity, which is such an essential quality of all atomic sources of electric fields actually occurring in nature.

I refuse to believe that God is a weak left-hander.

For quite a while I have set for myself the rule if a theoretician says 'universal' it just means pure nonsense.

To us ... the only acceptable point of view appears to be the one that recognizes both sides of reality-the quantitative and the qualitative, the physical and the psychical-as compatible with each other, and can embrace them simultaneously ... It would be most satisfactory of all if physis and psyche (i.e., matter and mind) could be seen as complementary aspects of the same reality.

I have done a terrible thing, I have postulated a particle that cannot be detected.

It is not only not right, it is not even wrong.

God made the bulk; the surface was invented by the devil.

That's not right. That's not even wrong.

How can one avoid despondency if one thinks of the anomalous Zeeman effect?

When one analyzes the pre-conscious step to concepts, one always finds ideas which consist of 'symbolic images.' The first step to thinking is a painted vision of these inner pictures whose origin cannot be reduced only and firstly to the sensual perception but which are produced by an 'instinct to imagining' and which are re-produced by different individuals independently, i.e. collectively... But the archaic image is also the necessary predisposition and the source of a scientific attitude. To a total recognition belong also those images out of which have grown the rational concepts.

It isn't right. It isn't even wrong.

If I understand Dirac correctly, his meaning is this: there is no God, and Dirac is his Prophet.

You know, what Einstein has just said isn't so stupid.

Einstein has a feeling for the central order of things. He can detect it in the simplicity of natural laws. We may take it that he felt this simplicity very strongly and directly during his discovery of the theory of relativity. Admittedly, this is a far cry from the contents of religion. I don't believe Einstein is tied to any religious tradition, and I rather think the idea of a personal God is entirely foreign to him.

The natural scientist is concerned with a particular kind of phenomena ... he has to confine himself to that which is reproducible ... I do not claim that the reproducible by itself is more important than the unique. But I do claim that the unique exceeds the treatment by scientific method. Indeed it is the aim of this method to find and test natural laws.

This isn't right. This isn't even wrong.

Well, our friend Dirac, too, has a religion, and its guiding principle is "God does not exist and Dirac is His prophet."