Great Throughts Treasury

"Most forms of human creativity have one aspect n common: the attempt to give some sense to the various impressions, emotions, experiences, and actions that fill our lives, and thereby to give some meaning and value to our existence... The crisis of our time in the Western world is that the search for meaning has become meaningless for many of us."

"The lack of awareness of sense and purpose has led culture to become increasingly shallow."

"Youngsters and adults cannot learn if information is pressed into their brains. You can teach only by creating interest, by creating an urge to know. Knowledge has to be sucked into the brain, not pushed into it. First, one must create a state of mind that craves knowledge, interest and wonder."

"Science is an important part of the humanities because it is based on an essential human trait: curiosity about the how and why of our environment. We must foster wonder, joy of insight."

"Human existence is based upon two pillars: Compassion and knowledge. Compassion without knowledge is ineffective; knowledge without compassion is inhuman."

"People cannot learn by having information pressed into their brains. Knowledge has to be sucked into the brain, not pushed in. First, one must create a state of mind that craves knowledge, interest and wonder. You can only teach by creating an urge to learn. "

"What is beautiful in science is the same thing that is beautiful in Beethoven. There’s a fog of events and suddenly you see a connection. It expresses a complex of human concerns that goes deeply to you, that connects things that were always in you that were never put together before."

"Goedel proved that a system of axioms can never be based on itself; in order to prove its validity, statements from outside must be used."

"Science has its roots and origins outside its own rational realm of thinking. It is based on the conviction of every scientist and of society as a whole, that scientific truth is relevant and essential."

"The study of open scientific frontiers where unsolved fundamental problems are faced is, and should be, a part of higher education. It fosters a spirit of inquiry; it lets the student participate in the joy of a new insight, in the inspiration of new understanding."

"What are we going to cover this semester?" "It doesn't matter what we cover; it matters what we discover."

"He did not direct from the head office. He was intellectually and even physically present at each decisive step. He was present in the laboratory or in the seminar rooms, when a new effect was measured, when a new idea was conceived. It was not that he contributed so many ideas or suggestions; he did so sometimes, but his main influence came from something else. It was his continuous and intense presence, which produced a sense of direct participation in all of us; it created that unique atmosphere of enthusiasm and challenge that pervaded the place throughout its time. [About Dr. Oppenheimer working on the Manhattan Project]"

"Conferences with open attendance are very important for the stimulation of young people or other people who are new in the field... The field of high-energy physics is, as you know, very strongly in the hands of a clique and it is hard for an outsider to enter."

"People cannot learn by having information pressed into their brains. Knowledge has to be sucked into the brain, not pushed in. First, one must create a state of mind that craves knowledge, interest and wonder. You can teach only by creating an urge to know."

"The only sin is if you hear a good idea and don't steal it."

"It was absolutely marvelous working for Wolfgang Pauli. You could ask him anything. There was no worry that he would think a particular question was stupid, since he thought all questions were stupid."