Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that what we consider to be real is ultimately composed of elements that are intangible or abstract.
Niels Bohr's quote probes the nature of reality, indicating that the physical world we perceive is constructed from fundamental particles and forces that defy our traditional understanding of 'realness'. It invites a philosophical contemplation on the nature of existence, pushing us to consider that reality is a complex interplay of the tangible and the intangible, and that our perceptions might be limited by our understanding of these underlying components.
In practice
In a lecture on the nature of reality, I cited Niels Bohr's quote to spark a discussion about perception.
When asked ... [about] an underlying quantum world, Bohr would answer, 'There is no quantum world. There is only an abstract quantum physical description. It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about Nature.'
An independant reality in the ordinary physical sense can neither be ascribed to the phenomenon nor to the agencies of observation.
An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made, in a narrow field.
Those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum theory cannot possibly have understood it.
When searching for harmony in life one must never forget that in the drama of existence we are ourselves both actors and spectators.
And anyone who thinks they can talk about quantum theory without feeling dizzy hasn't yet understood the first thing about it.
Some minds improve by travel, others, rather, resemble copper wire, or brass, which get the narrower by going farther.
Into this wild-beast tangle these men had been born without their consent, they had taken part in it because they could not help it; that they were in jail was no disgrace to them, for the game had never been fair, the dice were loaded. They were swindlers and thieves of pennies and dimes, and they had been trapped and put out of the way by the swindlers and thieves of millions of dollars.
Without being forgiven, released from the consequences of what we have done, our capacity to act would, as it were, be confined to one single deed from which we could never recover; we would remain the victims of its consequences forever.
He was an embittered atheist, the sort of atheist who does not so much disbelieve in God as personally dislike Him.
The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."
We have to state, without mincing words, that there is an inseparable bond between our faith and the poor. May we never abandon them.
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