It Is More Important To

It Is More Important To Have Beauty In One's Equations Than To Have Them Fit Experiment... 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. If There Is Not Complete Agreement Between The Results Of One's Work And Experiment, One Should Not Allow Oneself To Be Too Discouraged, Because The Discrepancy May Well Be Due To Minor Features That Are Not Properly Taken Into Account And That Will Get Cleared Up With Further Developments Of The Theory.

Living Is Worthwhile If One Can Contribute In Some Small Way To This Endless Chain Of Progress.

A Termination Of One's Life Is Necessary In The Scheme Of Things To Provide A Logical Reason For Unselfishness. . . . The Fact That There Is An End To One's Life Compels One To Take An Interest In Things That Will Continue To Live After One Is Dead.

The Underlying Physical Laws Necessary For The Mathematical Theory Of A Large Part Of Physics And The Whole Of Chemistry Are Thus Completely Known, And The Difficulty Is Only That The Exact Application Of These Laws Leads To Equations Much Too Complicated To Be Soluble. It Therefore Becomes Desirable That Approximate Practical Methods Of Applying Quantum Mechanics Should Be Developed, Which Can Lead To An Explanation Of The Main Features Of Complex Atomic Systems Without Too Much Computation.

Hopes Are Always Accompanied By Fears, And, In Scientific Research, The Fears Are Liable To Become Dominant.