Quotes from John Archibald Wheeler

Of all heroes , Spinoza was Einstein 's greatest. No one expressed more strongly then he a belief in the harmony , the beauty , and most of all the ultimate comprehensibility of nature.

Individual events. Events beyond law. Events so numerous and so uncoordinated that, flaunting their freedom from formula, they yet fabricate firm form.

I like to think that someone will trace how the deepest thinking of India made its way to Greece and from there to the philosophy of our times

We live on an island surrounded by a sea of ignorance. As our island of knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.

In any field, find the strangest thing and then explore it.

No phenomenon is a real phenomenon until it is an observed phenomenon.

In order to more fully understand this reality, we must take into account other dimensions of a broader reality.

Now is the time for everyone who believes in the rule of reason to speak up against pathological science and its purveyors.

This is *our* Universe, our museum of wonder and beauty, our cathedral.

Behind it all is surely an idea so simple, so beautiful, that when we grasp it - in a decade, a century, or a millennium - we will all say to each other, how could it have been otherwise? How could we have been so stupid?

There is nothing in the world except empty curved space. Matter, charge, electromagnetism and other fields are only manifestations of the curvature of space.

We live on an island surrounded by a sea of ignorance. As our island of knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.

In any field, find the strangest thing and then explore it.

Spacetime tells matter how to move; matter tells spacetime how to curve.

The universe gives birth to consciousness, and consciousness gives meaning to the universe.

Never make a calculation until you know the answer. Make an estimate before every calculation, try a simple physical argument (symmetry! invariance! conservation!) before every derivation, guess the answer to every paradox and puzzle. Courage: No one else needs to know what the guess is. Therefore make it quickly, by instinct. A right guess reinforces this instinct. A wrong guess brings the refreshment of surprise. In either case life as a spacetime expert, however long, is more fun!

Yes, there is happiness to be found in the mere contemplation of the deepest mysteries.

Anyone who expects to create, be it as a scientist or artist, scholar or writer, needs self-confidence, even bravado. How else can one dare to imagine understanding what no one else has understood, discovering what no one else has discovered? Where does this confidence come from? Fortunately, every young person is blessed with some of it. It is part of human character.

There are many modes of thinking about the world around us and our place in it. I like to consider all the angles from which we might gain perspective on our amazing universe and the nature of existence.

Spacetime grips mass, telling it how to move... Mass grips spacetime, telling it how to curve

Nobody can be anybody without somebodies around.

Individual events. Events beyond law. Events so numerous and so uncoordinated that, flaunting their freedom from formula, they yet fabricate firm form.

Never make a calculation until you know the answer.

the past has no existence except as it is recorded in the present. (...) we would seem forced to say that no phenomenon is a phenomenon until it is an observed phenomenon. The universe does not 'exist, out there' independent of all acts of observation. Instead, it is in some strange sense a participatory universe