Science Quote by Niels Bohr

A warning dressed as etiquette: don’t let your mouth outrun your mind. Bohr’s line lands because it reverses a common virtue. We’re taught that clarity is always moral, always helpful. Bohr suggests clarity can be a kind of lie when it’s not earned by thought. In science, a sentence that sounds airtight can seduce everyone in the room into mistaking confidence for understanding. The danger isn’t just being wrong; it’s being wrong in a way that becomes socially sticky because it’s easy to repeat.

The intent is disciplinary. Bohr isn’t telling people to be obscure for sport; he’s arguing for a strict accounting system between cognition and communication. Say only what your conceptual apparatus can cash. That restraint matters most in fields like quantum physics, where language is permanently strained: everyday words (particle, wave, measurement) smuggle in classical assumptions that break at the atomic scale. Bohr’s own complementarity principle lives in that tension, insisting that we can describe nature only through mutually limiting perspectives. Over-clarifying, in that world, is not precision; it’s overfitting your metaphors.

Subtext: intellectual humility is a technical skill, not a personality trait. The cleanest-sounding explanation may be the one that has prematurely closed the case. Bohr is also, quietly, describing an ethic of public speech. Don’t produce crisp takes as a substitute for hard thinking; don’t give your audience the dopamine hit of certainty if you can’t justify it. In an era that rewards declarative confidence, the line reads less like advice and more like resistance.