Niels Bohr Quotes

Learning is any change in a system that produces a more or less permanent change in its capacity for adapting to its environment.

Investigation may be likened to the long months of pregnancy, and solving a problem to the day of birth. To investigate a problem is, indeed, to solve it.

The great advantage of being human is that we can employ rational thought and resolve to change our circumstances.

Studies have shown that 90% of error in thinking is due to error in perception. If you can change your perception, you can change your emotion and this can lead to new ideas.

Writing's a great skill, but thinking's a better one.

What I do, basically, is look at things from different angles. That is what I do on stage comedically, and that is what I do in art. I was always fascinated by the structure of things, why things work this way and not that way. So I like to see how things behave if you change the point of view.

Asking the right questions is half the solution to any problem.

I have learned to listen and to hone my instincts to be perceptive and be receptive to change, to constantly live in ambiguity.

Innovation comes from, one, acknowledging yourself; two, studying and understanding the problem; and three, finding a solution.

Asking the proper question is the central act of transformation!

You cannot solve a problem with the mind that created it. First you must change the mind.

You can never solve a problem on the same level as the problem.

Try fighting with your head for a change... it's a good one, even if it does resist learning.

Sometimes the only solution is figuring out a bigger problem to focus on.

If you are creative enough to imagine a problem, you're clever enough to discover a solution.

If you can see things out of whack, then you can see how things can be in whack.

You can pout about the way the world is as long as you want, but that's not going to change it. You've got to figure it out.

Intelligence is like four-wheel drive. It only allows you to get stuck in more remote places.

[Consider] a fence or gate erected across a road] The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, "I don't see the use of this; let us clear it away." To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: "If you don't see the use of it, I certainly won't let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it."

Sometimes, the best answer is a more interesting question.

Without mathematics, we are blind.

When I get the point, I often don't know what to do with it.

The key to good decision making is not knowledge. It is understanding. We are swimming in the former. We are desperately lacking in the latter.

We shall find the answer when we examine the problem, the problem is never apart from the answer, the problem IS the answer, understanding the problem dissolves the problem.

To use your head, you have to go out of your mind.