Quotes from Paul Dirac

Theoretical physicists accept the need for mathematical beauty as an act of faith... For example, the main reason why the theory of relativity is so universally accepted is its mathematical beauty.

In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite.

There are always more people who prefer to speak than to listen.

God used beautiful mathematics in creating the world.

If there is a God, he's a great mathematician.

I do not see how a man can work on the frontiers of physics and write poetry at the same time. They are in opposition.

It seems that if one is working from the point of view of getting beauty in one's equations, and if one has really a sound insight, one is on a sure line of progress.

I should like to suggest to you that the cause of all the economic troubles is that we have an economic system which tries to maintain an equality of value between two things, which it would be better to recognise from the beginning as of unequal value.

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

In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite.

The measure of greatness in a scientific idea is the extent to which it stimulates thought and opens up new lines of research.

If you are receptive and humble, mathematics will lead you by the hand.

God is a mathematician of a very high order and He used advanced mathematics in constructing the universe.

Mathematics is only a tool and one should learn to hold the physical ideas in one's mind without reference to the mathematical form.

It seems clear that the present quantum mechanics is not in its final form. Some further changes will be needed, just about as drastic as the changes made in passing from Bohr's orbit theory to quantum mechanics. Some day a new quantum mechanics, a relativistic one, will be discovered, in which we will not have these infinities occurring at all. It might very well be that the new quantum mechanics will have determinism in the way that Einstein wanted.

It is more important to have beauty in one's equation than to have them fit experiment

A physical law must possess mathematical beauty

The underlying physical laws necessary for the mathematical theory of a larger part of physics and the whole of chemistry are thus completely known.

I never read. It prevents me from thinking.