Niels Bohr Quotes

There are trivial truths and the great truths. The opposite of a trivial truth is plainly false. The opposite of a great truth is also true.

If you have a correct statement, then the opposite of a correct statement is of course an incorrect statement, a wrong statement. But when you have a deep truth, then the opposite of a deep truth may again be a deep truth.

Truth is always paradoxical.

The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.

A great truth is a truth whose opposite is also a truth.

The opposite of every truth is just as true.

There are two sorts of truth: trivialities, where opposites are clearly absurd, and profound truths, recognised by the fact that the opposite is also a profound truth

The truest sayings are paradoxical.

Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it.

The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth.

I think the phrase that resonates from 'Just One Year' is something I sort of live by: 'The truth and its opposite are flip sides of the same coin.'

In contradiction and paradox, you can find truth.

I am not by any means a philosopher, although I have worked with some talented people in the discipline. But certain philosophical concepts deeply inform the way I think about the world. The idea of 'opposing truths at extremes' is a powerful concept that I came to appreciate in my twenties.

Contradiction itself, far from always being a criterion of error, is sometimes a sign of truth.

Pushing any truth out very far, you are met by a counter-truth.

Most thoughts are only profiles of thoughts. They must be inverted and synthesized with their antipodes. Thus many philosophical writings become very interesting which would not have been so otherwise.

the truth is often a mixed message

Paradoxes are the only truths.

The old saying of the two kinds of truth. To the one kind belongs statements so simple and clear that the opposite assertion obviously could not be defended. The other kind, the so-called 'deep truths', are statements in which the opposite also contains deep truth.

Contradiction is the essence of the universe.

There is no idea that does not carry in itself a possible refutation, no word that does not imply its opposite.

The truth is rarely true and never simple.

There is a place where Contrarieties are equally True.

Everything is true; only the opposite is true too; you must believe both equally or be damned.

All wisdom ends in paradox.