Albert Einstein Quotes

If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?

I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.

Any fool can know. The point is to understand.

Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.

A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.

Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.

The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.

If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?

Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves.

Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.

The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science.

Creativity is intelligence having fun.

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.

If A is a success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut

Everything must be made as simple as possible. But not simpler.

Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.

I never made one of my discoveries through the process of rational thinking

Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters.

In the midst of difficulty lies opportunity.

Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.

A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy?

The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.

Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions.

If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts.

The woman who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. The woman who walks alone is likely to find herself in places no one has ever been before.

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.

It would be possible to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure.

Love is a better teacher than duty.

Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.

The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything

The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.

Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.

A ship is always safe at the shore - but that is NOT what it is built for.

If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things.

I never think of the future - it comes soon enough.

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.

The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is at all comprehensible.

Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.

It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.

Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.

I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity.

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.

Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater.

A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.

The hardest thing to understand in the world is the income tax.

You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.

If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.

From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: that we are here for the sake of each other - above all for those upon whose smile and well-being our own happiness depends, and also for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy. Many times a day I realize how much my own outer and inner life is built upon the labors of my fellow men, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received.

Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.

Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.

Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death.

Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.

I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own — a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotisms.

If there is any religion that could respond to the needs of modern science, it would be Buddhism.

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

Three great forces rule the world: stupidity, fear and greed.

The only real valuable thing is intuition.

When the solution is simple, God is answering.

A person starts to live when he can live outside himself.

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.

I want to know all Gods thoughts; all the rest are just details.

If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.

One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike — and yet it is the most precious thing we have.

It is my view that the vegetarian manner of living, by its purely physical effect on the human temperament, would most beneficially influence the lot of mankind.

When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than any talent for abstract, positive thinking.

Laws alone can not secure freedom of expression; in order that every man present his views without penalty there must be spirit of tolerance in the entire population.

The ideals which have always shone before me and filled me with joy are goodness, beauty, and truth.

God is subtle but he is not malicious.

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.

It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.

Be a loner. That gives you time to wonder, to search for the truth. Have holy curiosity. Make your life worth living.

The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom the realm of the spirit for your own personal joy and to the profit of the community to which your later work belongs.

I never teach my pupils, I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.

Information is not knowledge.

No, this trick won't work... How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love?

A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.

There are two important things for full success in life: 1. Don´t tell everything you know.

The more I study science, the more I believe in God.

Possessions, outward success, publicity, luxury - to me these have always been contemptible. I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for everyone, best for both the body and the mind.

You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.

Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect, as well as for the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper.

The only source of knowledge is experience.

It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry; for this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom. Without this it goes to wrack and ruin without fail.

Failure is success in progress

Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish.

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.

Force always attracts men of low morality.

The true value of a human being can be found in the degree to which he has attained liberation from the self.

If my theory of relativity is proven successful, Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare me a citizen of the world. Should my theory prove untrue, France will say that I am a German, and Germany will declare that I am a Jew.

An empty stomach is not a good political adviser.

Solitude is painful when one is young, but delightful when one is more mature.

I am neither especially clever nor especially gifted. I am only very, very curious.

What really interests me is whether God had any choice in the creation of the World.

A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy?

I don't try to imagine a personal God; it suffices to stand in awe at the structure of the world, insofar as it allows our inadequate senses to appreciate it."

No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.

If most of us are ashamed of shabby clothes and shoddy furniture let us be more ashamed of shabby ideas and shoddy philosophies.... It would be a sad situation if the wrapper were better than the meat wrapped inside it.

You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat.

Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either.

Small is the number of people who see with their eyes and think with their minds.

Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.

Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.

How I wish that somewhere there existed an island for those who are wise and of good will.

It gives me great pleasure indeed to see the stubbornness of an incorrigible nonconformist warmly acclaimed.

Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.

It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.

Truth is what stands the test of experience.

What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism.

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, gaining new and wider views, discovering unexpected connections between our starting points and its rich environment. But the point from which we started out still exists and can be seen, although it appears smaller and forms a tiny part of our broad view gained by the mastery of the obstacles on our adventurous way up.

To punish me for my contempt for authority, fate made me an authority myself.

Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas.

Joy in looking and comprehending is nature's most beautiful gift.

Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.

It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.

My pacifism is an instinctive feeling, a feeling that possesses me because the murder of men is disgusting. My attitude is not derived from any intellectual theory but is based on my deepest antipathy to every kind of cruelty and hatred.

We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.

A perfection of means, and confusion of aims, seems to be our main problem.

One of the strongest motives that lead men to art and science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness, from the fetters of one's own ever-shifting desires. A finely tempered nature longs to escape from the personal life into the world of objective perception and thought.

Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.

The most important human endeavor is the striving for morality in our actions. Our inner balance and even our very existence depend on it. Only morality in our actions can give beauty and dignity to life.

The release of atomic power has changed everything except our way of thinking ... the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker. (1945)

Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.

Why is it that no one understands me and everybody likes me

People love chopping wood. In this activity one immediately sees results.

Something deeply hidden had to be behind things.

One had to cram all this stuff into one's mind for the examinations, whether one liked it or not. This coercion had such a deterring effect on me that, after I had passed the final examination, I found the consideration of any scientific problems distasteful to me for an entire year.

Since the mathematicians have invaded the theory of relativity I do not understand it myself any more.

Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.

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.

The formulation of the problem is often more essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skill."

Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal.

Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth. (said of Mahatma Gandhi)

I am a deeply religious nonbeliever - this is a somewhat new kind of religion.

There comes a time when the mind takes a higher plane of knowledge but can never prove how it got there.

The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.

Great spirits have always encountered opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly.

Time and space are modes by which we think and not conditions in which we live.

It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.

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'S relativity.

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.

The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge.

The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them.

A photograph never grows old. You and I change, people change all through the months and years but a photograph always remains the same. How nice to look at a photograph of mother or father taken many years ago. You see them as you remember them. But as people live on, they change completely. That is why I think a photograph can be kind.

I know quite certainly that I myself have no special talent; curiosity, obsession and dogged endurance, combined with self-criticism, have brought me to my ideas.

It is every man's obligation to put back into the world at least the equivalent of what he takes out of it.

That deep emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God.

The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there's no risk of accident for someone who's dead.

The strength of the Constitution lies entirely in the determination of each citizen to defend it. Only if every single citizen feels duty bound to do his share in this defense are the constitutional rights secure.

The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend a personal God and avoid dogmas and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual, as a meaningful unity. Buddhism answers this description.

Problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.

Three Rules of Work: Out of clutter find simplicity. From discord find harmony. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.

Every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving.

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.

The gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.

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.

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.

Bear in mind that the wonderful things you learn in your schools are the work of many generations. All this is put in your hands as your inheritance in order that you may receive it, honor it, add to it, and one day faithfully hand it on to your children.

In order to be an immaculate member of a flock of sheep, one must above all be a sheep oneself.

Curiosity has its own reason for existence.

A man's ethical behaviour should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."

Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.

The value of a man should be seen in what he gives and not in what he is able to receive.

I assert that the cosmic religious experience is the strongest and the noblest driving force behind scientific research.

To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science.

He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.

What is the meaning of human life, or, for that matter, of the life of any creature? To know the answer to this question means to be religious. You ask: Does it make any sense, then, to pose this question? I answer: The man who regards his fellow creatures as meaningless is not merely unhappy but hardly fit for life.

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

True art is characterized by an irresistible urge in the creative artist.

Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper.

My sense of god is my sense of wonder about the universe.

When the number of factors coming into play in a phenomenological complex is too large scientific method in most cases fails. One need only think of the weather, in which case the prediction even for a few days ahead is impossible.

As far as I'm concerned, I prefer silent vice to ostentatious virtue.

Anger dwells only in the bosom of fools.

All of us who are concerned for peace and triumph of reason and justice must be keenly aware how small an influence reason and honest good will exert upon events in the political field.

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.

The right to search for the truth implies also a duty; one must not conceal any part of what one has recognized to be the truth.

So long as there are men, there will be wars.

The fanatical atheists are like slaves who are still feeling the weight of their chains which they have thrown off after hard struggle. They are creatures who—in their grudge against traditional religion as the "opium of the masses"—cannot hear the music of the spheres.

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.

As long as there are sovereign nations possessing great power, war is inevitable.

The man who regards his own life and that of his fellow-creatures as meaningless is not merely unfortunate but almost disqualified for life.

Yes, we have to divide up our time like that, between our 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.

The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.

Bureaucracy is the death of all sound work.

Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism - how passionately I hate them!

Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.

The only justifiable purpose of political institutions is to ensure the unhindered development of the individual.

Morality is of the highest importance - but for us, not for God.

It is easier to denature plutonium than to denature the evil spirit of man.

When you look at yourself from a universal standpoint, something inside always reminds or informs you that there are bigger and better things to worry about.

I have reached an age where if someone tells me to wear socks, I dont have to

Any fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius-and a lot of courage-to move in the opposite direction.

The environment is everything that isn't me.

The pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, an almost fanatical love of justice and the desire for personal independence — these are the features of the Jewish tradition which make me thank my stars that I belong to it.

No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.

Ethical axioms are found and tested not very differently from the axioms of science. Truth is what stands the test of experience.

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.

I think and think for months and years. Ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right.

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.

Never lose a holy curiosity.

If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker.

It is the duty of every citizen according to his best capacities to give validity to his convictions in political affairs.

True religion is real living; living with all one's soul, with all one's goodness and righteousness.

More and more I come to value charity and love of one's fellow being above everything else...All our lauded technological progress-our very civilization-is like the axe in the hand of the pathological criminal.

The most important thing is to not stop questioning.

The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.

Computers are incredibly fast, accurate, and stupid: humans are incredibly slow, inaccurate and brilliant; together they are powerful beyond imagination.

A theory is something nobody believes, except the person who made it. An experiment is something everybody believes, except the person who made it.

The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

The individual must not merely wait and criticize, he must defend the cause the best he can. The fate of the world will be such as the world deserves.

Without deep reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people.

We have to do the best we can. This is our sacred human responsibility.

The strongest force in the universe is Compound Interest.

Politics is for the present, but an equation is for eternity.

Man usually avoids attributing cleverness to somebody else unless it is an enemy.

Teaching should be such that what is offered is perceived as a valuable gift and not as a hard duty.

The attempt to combine wisdom and power has only rarely been successful and then only for a short while.

Scientists investigate that which already is; Engineers create that which has never been

Relativity applies to physics, not ethics.

I would not think that philosophy and reason themselves will be man's guide in the foreseeable future; however, they will remain the most beautiful sanctuary they have always been for the select few.

I do not believe in the God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil.

The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.

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.

If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.

Memory is deceptive because it is colored by today's events.

I am convinced that He (God) does not play dice.

If A equals success, then the formula is A equals X plus Y and Z, with X being work, Y play, and Z keeping your mouth shut.

Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized.

How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people.

Desire for approval and recognition is a healthy motive, but the desire to be acknowledged as better, stronger or more intelligent than a fellow being or fellow scholar easily leads to an excessively egoistic psychological adjustment, which may becom

We still do not know one thousandth of one percent of what nature has revealed to us

Isn't it strange that I who have written only unpopular books should be such a popular fellow?

We can understand almost anything, but we can't understand how we understand.

All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man's life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom.

It is the theory that decides what can be observed.

I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for everyone, best both for the body and the mind.

Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.

There's a genius in all of us.

When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, it seems like two minutes; when you sit on a hot stove for two minutes, it seems like two hours. That's relativity.

God is clever, but not dishonest.

The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one.

A man has to work so hard so that something of his personality stays alive. A tomcat has it so easy, he has only to spray and his presence is there for years on rainy days.

When I'm judging a theory, I ask myself whether, if I were God, I would have arranged the world in such a way.

Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocre minds. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence.

We cannot despair of humanity, since we ourselves are human beings.

It is strange to be known so universally and yet to be so lonely.

Innovation is not the product of logical thought, even though the final product is tied to a logical structure.

Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it.

The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.

Men marry women with the hope they will never change. Women marry men with the hope they will change. Invariably they are both disappointed.

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.

The ideals which have always shone before me and filled me with the joy of living are goodness, beauty, and truth. To make a goal of comfort or happiness has never appealed to me; a system of ethics built on this basis would be sufficient only for a herd of cattle.

The American lives even more for his goals, for the future, than the European. Life for him is always becoming, never being.

The problems of today can only be solved at a higher level of thinking than that which created them

Force always attracts men of low morality, and I believe it to be an invariable rule that tyrants of genius are succeeded by scoundrels.

Most people go on living their everyday life: half-frightened, half indifferent, they behold the ghostly tragic-comedy that is being performed on the international stage before the eyes and ears of the world.

Not until we dare to regard ourselves as a nation, not until we respect ourselves, can we gain the esteem of others, or rather only then will it come of its own accord

E=mc2. Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared

I want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know God's thoughts, the rest are details.

I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination.

Well-being and happiness never appeared to me as an absolute aim. I am even inclined to compare such moral aims to the ambitions of a pig.

To my mind, to kill in war is not a whit better than to commit ordinary murder.

There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle.

I think that a particle must have a separate reality independent of the measurements. That is an electron has spin, location and so forth even when it is not being measured. I like to think that the moon is there even if I am not looking at it.

My life is a simple thing that would interest no one. It is a known fact that I was born, and that is all that is necessary.

Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing.

Our death is not an end if we can live on in our children and the younger generation. For they are us; our bodies are only wilted leaves on the tree of life.

The high destiny of the individual is to serve rather than to rule.

I don't believe in mathematics.

If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.

Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.

A theory is the more impressive the greater is the simplicity of its premises, the more different are the kinds of things it relates and the more extended the range of its applicability.

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".

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

A religious person is devout in the sense that he has no doubt about the significance of those superpersonal objects and goals which neither require nor are capable of rational foundation

The process of scientific discovery is, in effect, a continual flight from wonder.

The point is to develop the childlike inclination for play and the childlike desire for recognition and to guide the child over to important fields for society. Such a school demands from the teacher that he be a kind of artist in his province.

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

The horizon of many people is a circle with a radius of zero. They call this their point of view.

One should guard against preaching to young people success in the customary form as the main aim in life. The most important motive for work in school and in life is pleasure in work, pleasure in its result, and the knowledge of the value of the result to the community.

The difference between what the most and the least learned people know is inexpressibly trivial in relation to that which is unknown.

Every kind of peaceful cooperation among men is primarily based on mutual trust and only secondarily on institutions such as courts of justice and police.

The distinctions separating the social classes are false; in the last analysis they rest on force.

Human beings are not condemned, because of their biological constitution, to annihilate each other or to be at the mercy of a cruel, self-inflicted fate.

Keep on sowing your seed, for you never know which will grow - perhaps it all will.

Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted.

Most of the fundamental ideas of science are essentially simple, and may, as a rule, be expressed in a language comprehensible to everyone.

Intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them.

The idle man does not know what it is to enjoy rest.

Don't listen to their words, fix your attention on their deeds.

God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates empirically.

This is what the painter, the poet, the speculative philosopher, and the natural scientists do, each in his own fashion.

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

Politics is a pendulum whose swings between anarchy and tyranny are fueled by perennially rejuvenated illusions.

The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.

The man of science is a poor philosopher.

The most precious things in life are not those you get for money.

Generations to come will find it difficult to believe that a man such as Gandhi ever walked the face of this earth.

Quantum mechanics is certainly imposing. But an inner voice tells me that this is not yet the real thing. The theory says a lot, but does not bring us any closer to the secrets of the "Old One." I, at any rate, am convinced that He is not playing at dice.

It should be possible to explain the laws of physics to a barmaid.

To understand the world one must not be worrying about one's self.

The wireless telegraph is not difficult to understand. The ordinary telegraph is like a very long cat. You pull the tail in New York, and it meows in Los Angeles. The wireless is the same, only without the cat.

When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute-and it's longer than any hour. That's relativity.

Where the world ceases to be the scene of our personal hopes and wishes, where we face it as free beings admiring, asking and observing, there we enter the realm of Art and Science.

After a certain high level of technical skill is achieved science and art tend to coalesce in aesthetics, plasticity, and form. The greatest scientists are artists as well.

Our task must be to free ourselves... by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and it's beauty.

In my experience, the best creative work is never done when one is unhappy.

The mere formulation of a problem is far more essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skills. To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle requires creative imagination and marks real advances in science.