Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), Ch. 29
Context: It's paradoxical that where people are the most closely crowded, in the big coastal cities in the East and West, the loneliness is the greatest. Back where people were so spread out in western Oregon and Idaho and Montana and the Dakotas you'd think the loneliness would have been greater, but we didn't see it so much.
The explanation, I suppose, is that the physical distance between people has nothing to do with loneliness. It's psychic distance, and in Montana and Idaho the physical distances are big but the psychic distances between people are small, and here it's reversed.
“It is a curious paradox that several of the greatest and most creative spirits in science, after achieving important discoveries by following their unfettered imaginations, were in their later years obsessed with reductionist philosophy and as a result became sterile. Hilbert was a prime example of this paradox. Einstein was another.”
The Scientist As Rebel (2006)
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Freeman Dyson 90
theoretical physicist and mathematician 1923Related quotes
Source: Labyrinths of Reason (1988), Chapter 1: "Paradox", p. 23
“Paradox is the sharpest scalpel in the satchel of science.”
Source: Information, The New Language of Science (2003), Chapter 23, Black Holes, Where information goes to hide, p. 204
Context: Paradox is the sharpest scalpel in the satchel of science. Nothing concentrates the mind as effectively, regardless of whether it pits two competing theories against each other, or theory against observation, or a compelling mathematical deduction against ordinary common sense.
Source: Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution (1996), p. 232-233.
1950's, On Being a Graphic Artist', 1953
Context: It may seem paradoxical to say that there are similarities between a poetical and a commercial mind, but it is a fact that both a poet and a businessman are constantly dealing with problems that are directly related to people and for which sensitivity is of prime importance. The business-like mind is sometimes described as being cold, sober, calculating, hard; but perhaps these are simply qualities that are necessary for dealing with people if one wants to achieve anything. One is always concerned with the mysterious, incalculable, dark, hidden aspects for which there is no easy formula, but which form essentially the same human element as that which inspires the poet.
Preface, p. 10
An Urchin in the Storm (1987)
“Science is a philosophy of discovery. Intelligent design is a philosophy of ignorance.”
Source: Death by Black Hole - And Other Cosmic Quandaries
Le mal de prendre une hypallage pour une découverte, une métaphore pour une démonstration, un vomissement de mots pour un torrent de connaissances capitales, et soi-même pour un oracle, ce mal naît avec nous.
Introduction to the Method of Leonardo da Vinci (1895)