Charles H. Townes Quotes

It's important that everyone realizes how much scientists still don't know.

We often say that our science is objective and accurate, but we don't often say that our science is incomplete - that although the established parts of natural science are very well tested and the evidence makes a compelling case for things being as they've been described, there nevertheless are open questions that we cannot answer.

There can sometimes be this fear among laypeople: 'I don't understand everything in science perfectly, so I just can't say anything about it.' I think it's good to know that we scientists are also confused some of the time.

The idea that certain things in life - and in the universe - don't yield up their secrets is something that requires a slightly more mature reader to accept.

We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything.

The most solid piece of scientific truth I know of is that we are profoundly ignorant about nature.

We keep, in science, getting a more and more sophisticated view of our essential ignorance.

All that we know is still infinitely less than all that still remains unknown.

It is unwise to wish everything explained.

Maybe we should admit that our science is not as perfect as we would like to believe and that nature is ultimately inexplicable and beyond our control.

The reality is, there's still so much we haven't yet figured out. There's still so much stuff that has not been made more, frankly, efficient.

A scientific approach means knowing what one knows and what one doesn't. Absolute or complete knowledge is unscientific.

Nature is all that we think we know plus all that we don't know whether or not we know that we don't know it.

The greatest of all the accomplishments of 20th century science has been the discovery of human ignorance

You can't mastermind everything. You'll go crazy. Just show up and play.

Science's job is to map our ignorance.

We absolutely must leave room for doubt or there is no progress and there is no learning. There is no learning without having to pose a question. And a question requires doubt. People search for certainty. But there is no certainty. People are terrified — how can you live and not know? It is not odd at all. You only think you know, as a matter of fact. And most of your actions are based on incomplete knowledge and you really don’t know what it is all about, or what the purpose of the world is, or know a great deal of other things. It is possible to live and not know.

I always think it's not what we know that's terrifying; it's what we don't know. That's sort of pervasive with everything in life.

That's, of course, the beautiful thing about science - that it's all about things we don't understand, not just the things we do understand.

Wisdom is not the understanding of mystery. Wisdom is accepting that mystery is beyond understanding. That's what makes it mystery.

Sometimes we just have to accept there are things we can’t know. Why is your sister ill? Why did my father die?…Sometimes we think we should be able to know everything. But we can’t. we have to allow ourselves to see what there is to see, and we have to imagine.

When people are least sure, they are often most dogmatic.

You know what, we don't know diddley squat about brains and no one has a clue how these things work, so don't believe what anyone tells you.

The loss which is unknown is no loss at all.

Whatever Nature has in store for mankind, unpleasant as it may be, men must accept, for ignorance is never better than knowledge.