Albert Einstein

   

You can't blame gravity for falling in love. 

  
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything
better. 
 
Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important
thing is not to stop questioning. 

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting
different results. 
  
Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man
of value. 
 
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when
we created them. 
 
The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its
limits. 
 
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm
not sure about the former. 
 
Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep
moving. 
 
The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination. 

Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them. 

  
The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who
are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it. 
 
Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has
learned in school. 
 
When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When
you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That's
relativity. 
 
It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative
expression and knowledge. 

Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own
hearts. 
  
Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere. 
 
It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded
our humanity. 
Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character. 
 
The only source of knowledge is experience. 

Everyone should be respected as an individual, but no one idolized. 

  
Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by
understanding. 
 
To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from
a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in
science. 
 
The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once. 
 
As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain,
and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. 
 
All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for
development accorded the individual. 

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one. 

 
If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research,
would it? 
 
Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not
giving the kiss the attention it deserves.
 
Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you
mine are still greater. 
 
Without deep reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for
other people. 
 
Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas. 
 
If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough. 
 
Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new. 
 
In matters of truth and justice, there is no difference between large
and small problems, for issues concerning the treatment of people are
all the same. 
 
Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value. 
 
Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls
into lazy habits of thinking. 
I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious. 
 
Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted
with important matters. 
 
There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you
can live as if everything is a miracle. 
 
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from
mediocre minds. 
 
Intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them. 
 
Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind. 
 
We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of
course, powerful muscles, but no personality. 
 
Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological
criminal. 
 
Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish. 
 
I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for
everyone, best both for the body and the mind. 
 
He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned
my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for
him the spinal cord would suffice. 
 
We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used
when we created them. 
 
Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at
death. 
 
It should be possible to explain the laws of physics to a barmaid. 
 
All these primary impulses, not easily described in words, are the
springs of man's actions. 

It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. 

 
It is only to the individual that a soul is given. 
 
One may say the eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility. 
 
To the Master's honor all must turn, each in its track, without a sound,
forever tracing Newton's ground. 
 
I want to know all Gods thoughts; all the rest are just details. 
 
Isn't it strange that I who have written only unpopular books should be
such a popular fellow? 
 
There could be no fairer destiny for any physical theory than that it
should point the way to a more comprehensive theory in which it lives
on as a limiting case. 
 
Too many of us look upon Americans as dollar chasers. This is a cruel
libel, even if it is reiterated thoughtlessly by the Americans
themselves. 
 
Human beings must have action; and they will make it if they cannot
find it. 
 
An empty stomach is not a good political adviser. 
 
Politics is for the present, but an equation is for eternity. 
 
The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own
reason for existing. 

A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be. 
  
I do not believe that civilization will be wiped out in a war fought with
the atomic bomb. Perhaps two-thirds of the people of the earth will be
killed. 
 
It stands to the everlasting credit of science that by acting on the
human mind it has overcome man's insecurity before himself and
before nature. 
 
Imagination is more important than knowledge. 
 
A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others
crazy? 
 
You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war. 
 
Morality is of the highest importance - but for us, not for God. 
 
A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new. 
 
The environment is everything that isn't me. 
Information is not knowledge. 
 
Love is a better teacher than duty. 
 
Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome
nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism - how passionately I
hate them! 
 
There comes a time when the mind takes a higher plane of knowledge
but can never prove how it got there.

Knowledge of what is does not open the door directly to what should
be. 

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the

source of all true art and science. 
 
I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his
creation and is but a reflection of human frailty. 
 
It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an
act of murder.
 
We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is
to survive. 
 
The faster you go, the shorter you are. 
 
It was the experience of mystery - even if mixed with fear - that
engendered religion. 
 
I am not only a pacifist but a militant pacifist. I am willing to fight for
peace. Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to
go to war. 
 
Occurrences in this domain are beyond the reach of exact prediction
because of the variety of factors in operation, not because of any lack
of order in nature. 
 
When the solution is simple, God is answering. 
 
Anger dwells only in the bosom of fools. 
 
Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and
Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods. 
 
Joy in looking and comprehending is nature's most beautiful gift. 
 
We still do not know one thousandth of one percent of what nature
has revealed to us. 
 
The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our
modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe. 
 
Concern for man and his fate must always form the chief interest of all
technical endeavors. Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams
and equations. 
 
No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that
created it. 
 
I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World
War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. 
 
A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man
need to be happy? 
 
Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions. 
 
I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years
of maturity. 
 
He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as
good as dead; his eyes are closed. 
 
I never think of the future - it comes soon enough. 
 
Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized. 
 
If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor. 
 
Force always attracts men of low morality. 
 
I shall never believe that God plays dice with the world. 

If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think

in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of
music. 
 
Most of the fundamental ideas of science are essentially simple, and
may, as a rule, be expressed in a language comprehensible to
everyone. 
 
There is no logical way to the discovery of these elemental laws.
There is only the way of intuition, which is helped by a feeling for the
order lying behind the appearance. 
 
Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love. 
 
The hardest thing to understand in the world is the income tax. 
 
Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of
compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature
and its beauty. 
 
Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous. 
 
Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age
eighteen. 
 
True religion is real living; living with all one's soul, with all one's
goodness and righteousness. 
 
It gives me great pleasure indeed to see the stubbornness of an
incorrigible nonconformist warmly acclaimed. 
 
Never lose a holy curiosity. 
 
Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its
creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own
brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking. 
 
If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts. 
 
Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind. 
 
If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for
reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed. 
 
The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education. 
 
It is strange to be known so universally and yet to be so lonely. 
 
Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law
of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. 
 
The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative
mind. 
 
Solitude is painful when one is young, but delightful when one is more
mature. 
 
The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there's no risk
of accident for someone who's dead. 
 
No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single
experiment can prove me wrong. 
 
You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created. 
 
I do not believe in the God of theology who rewards good and
punishes evil. 
 
I think and think for months and years. Ninety-nine times, the
conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right. 
 
God does not play dice. 
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. 
 
Confusion of goals and perfection of means seems, in my opinion, to
characterize our age. 
 
The only real valuable thing is intuition. 
 
In order to be an immaculate member of a flock of sheep, one must
above all be a sheep oneself. 
 
Small is the number of people who see with their eyes and think with
their minds. 
 
Memory is deceptive because it is colored by today's events. 
 
You ask me if I keep a notebook to record my great ideas. I've only
ever had one. 
 
Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it. 

The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has
merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one. 
 
The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is
comprehensible. 

God may be subtle, but he isn't plain mean. 

 
Mozart's music is so pure and beautiful that I see it as a reflection of
the inner beauty of the universe. 
 
One strength of the communist system of the East is that it has some
of the character of a religion and inspires the emotions of a religion. 
 
I want to go when I want. It is tasteless to prolong life artificially. I have
done my share; it is time to go. I will do it elegantly. 
 
God always takes the simplest way. 
 
I have just got a new theory of eternity. 
 
We cannot despair of humanity, since we ourselves are human
beings.
 
The process of scientific discovery is, in effect, a continual flight from
wonder. 
 
People love chopping wood. In this activity one immediately sees
results. 
 
I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. 
 
The high destiny of the individual is to serve rather than to rule. 
 
True art is characterized by an irresistible urge in the creative artist. 
 
The man of science is a poor philosopher. 

Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living
at it. 
 
I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to
be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority
behind it. 
 
My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior
spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive
with our frail and feeble mind. 
 
Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile. 
 
Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be
trusted in large ones either. 
 
It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer. 
 
Most people say that it is the intellect which makes a great scientist.
They are wrong: it is character. 

All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. 
 
The gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing
positive knowledge. 
 
Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and
soul can be a true master. For this reason mastery demands all of a
person. 
 
The value of a man should be seen in what he gives and not in what
he is able to receive. 
 
Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute and it seems like an hour.
Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. 

That deep emotional conviction of the presence of a superior

reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe,
forms my idea of God. 
 
I am a deeply religious nonbeliever - this is a somewhat new kind of
religion. 
 
As far as I'm concerned, I prefer silent vice to ostentatious virtue. 
 
The attempt to combine wisdom and power has only rarely been
successful and then only for a short while. 
 
The road to perdition has ever been accompanied by lip service to an
ideal. 
 
Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which
differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are
even incapable of forming such opinions. 
 
The grand aim of all science is to cover the greatest number of
empirical facts by logical deduction from the smallest number of
hypotheses or axioms. 
 
Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing. 
 
I used to go away for weeks in a state of confusion. 
 
The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday
thinking. 
 
The devil has put a penalty on all things we enjoy in life. Either we
suffer in health or we suffer in soul or we get fat. 
 
The distinction between the past, present and future is only a
stubbornly persistent illusion. 
 
The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are
permitted to remain children all our lives. 
 
I very rarely think in words at all. A thought comes, and I may try to
express it in words afterwards.