Quotes by Albert Einstein
(Page 2 of 6)

Mere unbelief in a personal God is no philosophy at all.

What I value in life is quality rather then quantity.

Matter is spirit reduced to point of visibility.

Do you remember how electrical currents and 'unseen waves' were laughed at? The knowledge about man is still in its infancy.

I believe we are here to do good. It is the responsibility of every human being to aspire to do something worthwhile, to make the world a better place than the one we found.

I believe serious progress (in the abolition of war) can be achieved only when men become organized on an international scale and refuse, as a body, to enter military or war service.

The idea of achieving security through national armament is, at the present state of military technique, a disastrous illusion.

Any brief military advantage the USA might gain with nuclear weapons would be offset by political and psychological losses and damage to American prestige. The United States might even touch off a worldwide armaments race.

The armament industry is indeed one of the greatest dangers that beset mankind. It is the hidden evil power.

Joy and amazement of the beauty and grandeur of this world of which man can just form a faint notion.

And knowledge is one of the finest attributes of man -- though often it is most loudly voiced by those who strive for it the least.

Relativity teaches us the connection between the different descriptions of one and the same reality.

Despite my being an old gypsy there is a tendency to respectability inherent in old age.

There are actually two approaches to reside your daily life. One is as if absolutely nothing is really a miracle. The other is as if every little thing is a wonder.

What I'm really interested in is whether God could have made the world in a different way; that is, whether the necessity of logical simplicity leaves any freedom at all.

The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evil.

Music has no effect on research work, but both are born of the same source and complement each other through the satisfaction they bestow.

This is a question too difficult for a mathematician. It should be asked of a philosopher(when asked about completing his income tax form).

Just as with the man in the fairy tale who turned whatever he touched into gold, with me everything is turned into newspaper clamor.

Whoever is devoid of the capacity to wonder, whoever remains unmoved, whoever cannot contemplate or know the deep shudder of the soul in enchantment, might just as well be dead for he has already closed his eyes upon life.

Creative energy is more critical than learning.

What is significant in one's own existence one is hardly aware, and it certainly should not bother the other fellow. What does a fish know about the water in which he swims all his life?

Human beings, in their thinking, feeling and acting are not free agents but are as causally bound as the stars in their motion.

Let me tell you what I look like: pale face, long hair, and a tiny start of a paunch. In addition, an awkward gait, and a cigar in the mouth and a pen in pocket or hand.

We will hope that future historians will explain the morbid symptoms of present-day society as the childhood ailments of an aspiring humanity, due entirely to the excessive speed at which civilization was advancing.

The analogy I like is this imagine being able to see the world but you are deaf, and then suddenly someone gives you the ability to hear things as well -- you get an extra dimension of perception.

Growth comes through analogy; through seeing how things connect, rather than only seeing how they might be different.

If one tries to navigate unknown waters one runs the risk of shipwreck.

If you want the answer to anything, go sit in Nature for awhile.

One who scorns the power of intuition will never rise above the ranks of journeyman calculator.

Keep fighting until the last buzzer sounds.

It is my belief that the problem of bringing peace to the world on a supranational basis will be solved only by employing Gandhi's method on a larger scale.

To stimulate creativity one must develop childlike inclination for play and the childlike desire for recognition.

Smoke like a chimney, work like a horse, eat without thinking, go for a walk only in really pleasant company.

Creating a new theory is not like destroying an old barn and erecting a skyscraper in its place. It is rather like climbing a mountain and gaining new and wider views.

New frameworks are like climbing a mountain -- the larger view encompasses rather than rejects the more restricted view.

Compound interest on debt was the banker's greatest invention, to capture, and enslave, a productive society.

The history of scientific and technical discovery teaches us that the human race is poor in independent and creative imagination.

The daily struggle does not arise from a purpose or a program, but from an immediate need.

Scientific greatness is less a matter of intelligence than character; if the scientist refuses to compromise or accept incomplete answers and persists in grappling the most basic and difficult questions.

So would a Being, endowed with higher insight and more perfect intelligence, watching man and his doings, smile about man's illusion that he was acting according to his own free will.

We are here for the sake of others.

I consider it important, indeed urgently necessary, for intellectual workers to get together, both to protect their own economic status and, also, generally speaking, to secure their influence in the political field.

Science not only purifies the religious impulse of the dross of its anthropomorphism but also contributes to a religious spiritualization of our understanding of life.

Science is the attempt to make the chaotic diversity of our sense-experience correspond to a logically uniform system of thought.

What the individual can do is to give a fine example, and to have the courage to uphold ethical values .. in a society of cynics.

The most important human endeavor is the striving for morality in our actions.

I cannot accept any concept of God based on the fear of life or the fear of death, or blind faith. I cannot prove to you that there is no personal God, but if I were to speak of him I would be a liar.

All our thinking is of this nature, a free play with concepts.

Every day, man is making bigger and better fool-proof things, and every day, nature is making bigger and better fools. So far, I think nature is winning.

When I was still a rather precocious young man, I already realized most vividly the futility of the hopes and aspirations that most men pursue throughout their lives.

No idea is conceived in our mind independent of our five senses i.e., no idea is divinely inspired.

There is no greater satisfaction for a just and well-meaning person than the knowledge that he has devoted his best energies to the service of the good cause.

The flag is a symbol of the fact that man is still a herd animal.

Everyday is an oportunity to make a new happy ending.

I know what it's like to see one's mother go through the agony of death and be unable to help; there is no consolation. We all have to bear such heavy burdens, for they are unalterably linked to life.

The wing structure of the hornet, in relation to its weight, is not suitable for flight, but he does not know this and flies anyway.

In scientific thinking are always present elements of poetry. Science and music requires a thought homogeneous.

America is today the hope of all honorable men who respect the rights of their fellow men and who believe in the principle of freedom and justice.

The development of general ability for independent thinking and judgment should always be placed foremost, not the acquisition of special knowledge.

If I had foreseen Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I would have torn up my formula in 1905.

There two things that are infinite, human stupidity and the universe, I don't know about the universe.

The normal objective of my thought affords no insight into the dark places of human will and feeling.

We believe that an informed citizenry will act for life and not for death.

I came to America because of the great, great freedom which I heard existed in this country. I made a mistake in selecting America as a land of freedom, a mistake I cannot repair in the balance of my lifetime.

I live my daydreams in music.

The greatest knowledge a person can possess is the address of the local library.

Mankind must give up war in the Atomic Era. What is at stake is the life or death of humanity.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. So is a lot.

My feeling is religious insofar as I am imbued with the consciousness of the insufficiency of the human mind to understand more deeply the harmony of the Universe which we try to formulate as laws of nature.

Conscious man, to be sure, has at all times been keenly aware that life is an adventure, that life must, forever, be wrested from death.

All meaningful and lasting change starts first in your imagination and then works its way out. Imagination is more important than knowledge.

Highly developed spirits often encounter resistance from mediocre minds.

Don't second guess the mistakes you've made, others will do that for you. Make things as simple as possible, but not simpler.

Yes, we now have to divide up our time like that, between politics and our equations. But to me our equations are far more important, for politics are only a matter of present concern. A mathematical equation stands forever.

I have come to know the mutability of all human relationships and have learned to insulate myself against both heat and cold so that a temperature balance is fairly well assured.

I know that philosophically a murderer is not responsible for his crime, but I prefer not to take tea with him.

I am doing just fine, considering that I have triumphantly survived Nazism and two wives.

The minority, the ruling class at present, has the schools and press, usually the Church as well, under its thumb. This enables it to organize and sway the emotions of the masses, and make its tool of them.

Our separation from each other is an optical illusion.

Mathematics are well and good but Nature keeps dragging us around by the nose.

Common sense is nothing more than a deposit of prejudices laid down by the mind before you reach eighteen.

The conscientious objector is a revoultionary. On deciding to disobey the law he sacrifices his personal interests to the most important cause of working for the betterment of society.

As the area of light expands, so does the perimeter of darkness.

A thousand things can prove me right and one can prove me wrong.

Example isn't another way to teach, it is the only way to teach.

For the most part, I do the thing which my own nature prompts me to do. It is embarrassing to earn so much respect and love for it.

Physical concepts are free creations of the human mind, and are not, however it may seem, uniquely determined by the external world.

Then there are the fanatical atheists whose intolerance is of the same kind as the intolerance of the religious fanatics and comes from the same source.

The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer.

There is one ray of hope. It seems to me that today the responsible leaders of the several peoples have, in the main, the honest will to abolish war.

The pursuit of knowledge is more valuable than its possession.

The highest principles for our aspirations and judgments are given to us in the Jewish-Christian religious tradition.

The state was made for man, not man for state.

I regard class differences as contrary to justice and, in the last resort, based on force.

You can't solve your problems by using the same thinking
that got you into those problems in the first place.

It is a precarious undertaking to say anything reliable about aims and intentions.

Even though the realms of religion and science in themselves are clearly marked off from each other, nevertheless there exist between the two strong reciprocal relationships and dependencies.

It is open to every man to choose the direction of his striving; and also every man may draw comfort from Lessing's fine saying, that the search for truth is more precious than its possession.

The right to search for truth implies also a duty.