Extended excerpt [Non-fiction]:

“The basic difference between the conduction of heat and a purely mechanical process became universally recognized. This experience gave me also an opportunity to learn a fact – a remarkable one, in my opinion: A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” (pp. 33-34)

Source [English]: Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers (1948 German|1949 Philosophical Library translation) Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) No. 803215983

Extended excerpt: [Conversation between Max Planck, fellow physicist Albert Einstein, and interviewer & translator James Murphy]

Murphy: Do you think that science in this particular might be a substitute for religion?

Max Planck: “Not to a skeptical state of mind; for science demands also the believing spirit. Anybody who has been seriously engaged in scientific work of any kind realizes that over the entrance to the gates of the temple of science are written the words: Ye must have faith. It is a quality which the scientists cannot dispense with.

The man who handles a bulk of results obtained from an experimental process must have an imaginative picture of the law that he is pursuing. He must embody this in an imaginary hypothesis. The reasoning faculties alone will not help him forward a step, for no order can emerge from that chaos of elements unless there is the constructive quality of mind which builds up the order by a process of elimination and choice. Again and again the imaginary plan on which one attempts to build up that order breaks down and then we must try another. This imaginative vision and faith in the ultimate success are indispensable. The pure rationalist has no place here.” (pp. 214-215)

Source link: Where Is Science Going? (1932) online via Internet Archive: https://archive.org/stream/whereissciencego00plan_0#page/214/mode/2up/search/Anybody+who+has+been

German extended excerpt: [Lecture delivered to colleagues of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society. RR edit: cited quote highlighted in bold text.]

“Besprechung hier zur Zeit noch enziehen, so wird es andererseits gerade im Sinne der Bestrebungen unserer Gesellschaft liegen, welche ja ihre vornehmste Aufgabe in der Gründung und Erhaltung naturwissenschaftlicher Forschungsinstitute erblickt, wenn in ihren Tagungen die alte Wahrheit auch äußerlich Würdigung findet, daß, wie auf allen Arbeitsgebieten, so auch in demjenigen, welches den Naturkräften gewidmet ist, dem Anwenden das Erkennen vorausgehen muß, und je feiner die Einzelheiten sind, in die wir der Natur auf irgend einem Pfade folgen können, um so reicher und nachhaltiger wird sich auch der Gewinn erweisen, den wir aus unserer Erkenntnis zu ziehen vermögen.” (p. 130)

[German source: Max Planck -Vortrag, gehalten in der Hauptversammlung der Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft, “Das Wesen des Lichts” (28 Oktober 1919) in Physikalische Rundblicke: Gesammelte Reden und Aufsätze, p. 129; online via Google Books, books.google.com]

German & English excerpt notes: “Ein Porträt der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft”| Max-Planck Gesellschaft, “Über Uns;” Planck quote appears at the top of the page. The word ‘wuss’ appears in this version, but does not appear in the 1919 transcript cited above: “Dem Anwenden muss das Erkennen vorausgehen.” The Max Planck Society translates the quote on their English-language page as “Insight must precede application.”

Source note: The Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gellschaft [Kaiser Wilhelm Society] was the precursor to today’s Max-Planck-Gesellschaft [Max Planck Society]. Planck served as president of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society (KWS) from 1930 -1937, and then served as interim KWS president at the end of WWII. The society was formally re-established under Planck’s name shortly following his death in 1947.

Extended excerpt – Alternative English translation:

“One of the most important branches of work of this society (the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft) is the maintenance of a research laboratory for natural science. The society has, however, discovered the old truism that in its own sphere, as in all spheres of work, knowledge must precede application, and the more detailed our knowledge of any branch of physics, the richer and more lasting will be the results which we can draw from that knowledge.” (p. 89)

[Alternative translation source: “The Nature of Light” (c. 1925) A Survey of Physical Theory, trans. Robert Jones & Dorothy H. Williams, New York, NY: Dover Publications, 1960 edition, p. 89; online via Internet Archive, www.archive.org

Note: The first English translation by Jones & Williams was published under the title A Survey of Physics: A Collection of Lectures and Essays. The cited line is translated in the same way in this earlier edition.]

Source link: [Original German text]: Physikalische Rundblicke: Gesammelte Reden und Aufsätze (1922) online via Google Books: https://books.google.com/books?id=NsnPAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA130&dq=so+wird+es+andererseits+gerade+im+Sinne+der+Bestrebungen+unserer+Gesellschaft

Source link [Max Planck Institute – German]: “Ein Porträt der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft” [accessed 14 July 2017] online via Max-Planck-Gesellschaft: https://www.mpg.de/kurzportrait

Source link [Max Planck Institute – English]: “A portrait of the Max Planck Society” [accessed 14 July 2017] online via Max-Planck-Gesellschaft: https://www.mpg.de/short-portrait

Source link [Alternative translation]: A Survey of Physical Theory (1925 as ‘A Survey of Physics,’ 1960 Dover edition) online via Internet Archive: https://archive.org/stream/ASurveyOfPhysicalTheory/A%20Survey%20of%20Physical%20Theory#page/n97/mode/2up

Extended excerpt [Chapter 11 – ‘Is the External World Real?’]:

“But if physical science is never to come to an exhaustive knowledge of its object, then does not this seem like reducing all science to a meaningless activity? Not at all. For it is just this striving forward that brings us to the fruits which are always falling into our hands and which are the unfailing sign that we are on the right road and that we are ever and ever drawing nearer to our journey’s end. But that journey’s end will never be reached, because it is always the still far thing that glimmers in the distance and is unattainable. It is not the possession of truth, but the success which attends the seeking after it, that enriches the seeker and brings happiness to him.” (p. 83)

Source link: Where Is Science Going? (1932) online via Internet Archive: https://archive.org/stream/whereissciencego00plan_0#page/82/mode/2up/search/enriches+the+seeker

Extended excerpt [Conversation between Max Planck, fellow physicist Albert Einstein, and interviewer & translator James Murphy]:

“Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are a part of the mystery that we are trying to solve. Music and art are, to an extent, also attempts to solve or at least to express the mystery. But to my mind the more we progress with either the more we are brought into harmony with all nature itself. And that is one of the great services of science to the individual.” (p. 217)

Source link: Where Is Science Going? (1932) online via Internet Archive: https://archive.org/stream/whereissciencego00plan_0#page/216/mode/2up/search/science+cannot+solve