Thoughts by Albert Einstein Quotes in English

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.

The development of science and of the creative activities of the spirit in general requires still another kind of freedom, which may be characterized as inward freedom. It is this freedom of the spirit which consists in the independence of thought from the restrictions of authoritarian and social prejudices as well as from unphilosophical routinizing and habit in general.

A man’s ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; 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.

People like you and I, though mortal of course, like everyone else, do not grow old no matter how long we live. What I mean is that we never cease to stand like curious children before the great mystery into which we were born.

Any intelligent 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 important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when one contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries to comprehend only a little of this mystery every day.

A person who is religiously enlightened appears to me to be one who has, to the best of his ability, liberated himself from the fetters of his selfish desires and is preoccupied with thoughts, feelings, and aspirations to which he clings because of their superpersonal value.

Of course, understanding of our fellow-beings is important. But this understanding becomes fruitful only when it is sustained by sympathetic feeling in joy and in sorrow. The cultivation of this most important spring of moral action is that which is left of religion when it has been purified of the elements of superstition.

Though I am now an old fogey, I am still hard at work and still refuse to believe that God plays dice.

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

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I am satisfied with the mystery of the eternity of life and with the awareness and a glimpse of the marvelous structure of the existing world, together with the devoted striving to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the Reason that manifest itself in nature.

Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.

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A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it.

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You never fail until you stop trying.

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Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.

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Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

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Success comes from curiosity, concentration, perseverance and self-criticism.

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Try not to become a man of success. Rather become a man of value.

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Relativity applies to physics, not ethics.

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Time is an illusion.

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Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.

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The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.

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Never memorize something that you can look up.

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

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Black holes are where God divided by zero.

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

If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself.

Creativity is intelligence having fun.

Any fool can know. The point is to understand.

God does not play dice with the universe.

Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.

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

In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.

Out of clutter, find simplicity.

I speak to everyone in the same way, whether he is the garbage man or the president of the university.

It is not that I'm so smart. But I stay with the questions much longer.

Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.

Love is a better master than duty.

Nothing happens until something moves.

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

The best way to cheer yourself is to cheer somebody else up.

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

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

When you trip over love, it is easy to get up. But when you fall in love, it is impossible to stand again.

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.

Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere.

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

Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of truth.

Genius is 1% talent and 99% percent hard work...

The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.

I must be willing to give up what I am in order to become what I will be.

I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.

If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.

Albert Einstein Quotes List

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

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Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.

Stay away from negative people. They have a problem for every solution.

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

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A happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwell too much on the future.

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

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

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

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Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.

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A new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move toward higher levels.

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

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I believe in intuition and inspiration. At times I feel certain I am right while not knowing the reason.

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

- Einstein Imagination Thoughts Page

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

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

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

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Don’t listen to the person who has the answers; listen to the person who has the questions.

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All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree.

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Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities.

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I always get by best with my naivety, which is 20 percent deliberate.

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Thinking is hard work; that’s why so few do it.

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Look around at how people want to get more out of life than they put in. A man of value will give more than he receives.

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

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

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Weak people revenge. Strong people forgive. Intelligent people ignore.

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

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

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Science can flourish only in an atmosphere of free speech.

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Intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them.

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The only thing more dangerous than ignorance is arrogance.

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

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

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

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

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What is right is not always popular and what is popular is not always right.

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I have reached an age when, if someone tells me to wear socks, I don’t have to.

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

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

Schools may favor such freedom by encouraging independent thought.

The great moral teachers of humanity were, in a way, artistic geniuses in the art of living.

It is the theory that decides what can be observed.

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

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

I want to know God’s thoughts; the rest are details.

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

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

One lives one’s life under constant tension, until it is time to go for good.

You can’t blame gravity for falling in love.

The only thing that you absolutely have to know, is the location of the library.

Live with purpose. Don’t let people or things around you get you down.

Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age 18.

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

Bureaucracy is the death of all sound work.

Each of us has to do his little bit toward transforming this spirit of the times.

Combinatory play seems to be the essential feature in productive thought.

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

Failure and deprivation are the best educators and purifiers.

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

At any rate, I am convinced that He does not play dice.

Nothing happens until something moves.

Long live impudence! It’s my guardian angel in this world.

Solitude can be tolerated only up to a certain limit, you know.

Only those who attempt the absurd can achieve the impossible.

A human being is part of a whole called by us “Universe.”

One flower is beautiful, a surfeit of flowers is vulgar.

Creativity is intelligence having fun.

The eternal mystery of the universe is its comprehensibility.

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

The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious.

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

There are two means of refuge from the misery of life – music and cats.

Information is not knowledge.

Without ‘ethical culture’ there is no salvation for humanity.

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

I love to travel, but I hate to arrive.

It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.

The value of achievement lies in the achieving.

I believe in one thing, that only a life lived for others is a life worth living.

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

It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.

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

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

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

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

Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.

The only way to escape the corruptible effect of praise is to go on working.

If you can’t explain it to a six year old, you don’t understand it yourself.

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

Imagination is the highest form of research.

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.

The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind.

When the solution is simple, God is answering.

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

The only source of knowledge is experience.

Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy.

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

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

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

All I have is the stubbornness of a mule; no, that’s quite all, I also have a nose.

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

At our age, the devil doesn’t give you much time off!

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the the universe.

I am happy at the thought that the worst worries are over for my parents.

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

Be creative, but make sure that what you create is not a curse for mankind.

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

I believe in intuitions and inspirations…I sometimes FEEL that I am right. I do not KNOW that I am.

A true genius admits that he/she knows nothing.

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

Every man has a right over his own life and war destroys lives that were full of promise.

We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.

I would teach peace rather than war. I would inculcate love rather than hate.

As to Schubert, I have only this to say: play the music, love – and keep you mouth shut.

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

Women marry men hoping they will change. Men marry women hoping they will not. So each is inevitably disappointed.

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

Mozart’s music is so pure and beautiful that I see it as a reflection of the inner beauty of the universe.

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

Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.

The faster you go, the shorter you are.

Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.

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

Marriage makes people treat each other as articles of property and no longer as free human beings.

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

All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree.

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

Marriage is but slavery made to appear civilized.

It is only to the individual that a soul is given.

A little knowledge is dangerous. So is a lot.

Human beings must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.

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

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

Why is it that nobody understands me, yet everybody likes me?

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

A country becomes really a soul only in consciously serving the intellectual life.

Anger dwells only in the bosom of fools.

How wretchedly inadequate is the theoretical physicist as he stands before Nature, and before his students.

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

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

If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.

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

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

With fame I become more and more stupid, which of course is a very common phenomenon.

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

God always takes the simplest way.

Force always attracts men of low morality.

God is subtle but he is not malicious.

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

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

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.

I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation and is but a reflection of human frailty.

I am content in my later years. I have kept my good humor and take neither myself nor the next person seriously.

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

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

The most powerful force in the universe is compound interest.

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

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.

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

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

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.

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

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

As for the words of warm praise addressed to me, I shall carefully refrain from disputing them. For who still believes that there is such a thing as genuine modesty? I should run the risk of being taken for just an old hypocrite.

When compared to six years’ schooling at a German authoritarian gymnasium, it made me clearly realize how much superior an education based on free action and personal responsibility is to one relying on outward authority.

I very rarely think in words at all. A thought comes, and I may try to express it in words afterwards.

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

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

We dance for laughter, we dance for tears, we dance for madness, we dance for fears, we dance for hopes, we dance for screams, we are the dancers, we create the dreams.

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

As for the search for truth, I know from my own painful searching, with its many blind alleys, how hard it is to take a reliable step, be it ever so small, towards the understanding of that which is truly important.

Through the reading of popular scientific books, I soon reached the conviction that much in the stories of the Bible could not be true. The consequence was a positively fanatic orgy of freethinking coupled with the impression that youth is intentionally being deceived by the state through lies; it was a crushing impression.

Numerous are the academic chairs, but rare are wise and noble teachers. Numerous and large are the lecture halls, but far from numerous the young people who genuinely thirst for truth and justice.

The old who have died live on in the young ones. Don’t you feel this now in your bereavement, when you look at your children?

Strenuous intellectual work and looking at God’s nature are the reconciling, fortifying, yet relentlessly strict angels that shall lead me through all of life’s troubles.

Although I am a typical loner in daily life, my consciousness of belonging to the invisible community of those who strive for truth, beauty, and justice has preserved me from feeling isolated.

I believe in Spinoza’s God, Who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God Who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind.

Without the sense of fellowship with men of like mind, of preoccupation with the objective, the eternally unattainable in the field of art and scientific research, life would have seemed to me empty.

Nothing truly valuable arises from ambition or from a mere sense of duty; it stems rather from love and devotion toward men and toward objective things.

This life is not such that we ought to complain when it comes to an end for us or for a loved one; rather, we may look back in satisfaction when it has been bravely and honorably withstood.

An awareness of my limitations pervades me all the more keenly in recent times because my faculties have been quite overrated since a few consequences of general relativity theory have stood the test.

Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the discernible concatenations, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion. To that extent I am, in point of fact, religious.

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

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

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

A man’s value to the community depends primarily on how far his feelings, thoughts, and actions are directed towards promoting the good of his fellows.

This delicate little plant [curiosity], aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom.

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

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

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 strongly drawn to a frugal life and am often oppressively aware that I am engrossing an undue amount of the labor of my fellow-men.

I do not at all believe in human freedom in the philosophical sense. Everybody acts not only under external compulsion but also in accordance with inner necessity.

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 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.

Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution. It is, strictly speaking, a real factor in scientific research.

What a strange thing must be a girl’s soul! Do you really believe that you could find permanent happiness through others, even if this be the one and only beloved man? I know this sort of animal personally, from my own experience as I am one of them myself. Not too much should be expected from them, this I know quite exactly. Today we are sullen, tomorrow high-spirited, after tomorrow cold, then again irritated and half-sick of life. And so it goes.

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

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.

I lack any sentiment of the sort; all I have is a sense of duty toward all people and an attachment to those with whom I have become intimate.

I am glad that you have given me the opportunity of expressing to you here my deep sense of gratitude as a man, as a good European, and as a Jew.

It is an irony of fate that I myself have been the recipient of excessive admiration and reverence from my fellow-beings, through no fault or merit of my own.

I am certain that it is the mystery of not understanding that attracts people; it impresses them with the aura and magnetism of mystery.

The ideals which have lighted me on my way and time after time given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been truth, goodness, and beauty.

Measured objectively, what a man can wrest from Truth by passionate striving is utterly infinitesimal. But the striving frees us from the bonds of the self and makes us comrades of those who are the best and the greatest.

God gave me the stubbornness of a mule and a fairly keen scent.

The great moral teachers of humanity were, in a way, artistic geniuses in the art of living.

I believe that whatever we do or live for has its causality; it is good, however, that we cannot see through to it.

Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.

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.

Many times a day I realize how much my outer and inner life is based upon the labors of my fellow men, both living and dead, and how much I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received.

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.

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.

The more a man is imbued with the ordered regularity of all events the firmer becomes his convictions that there is no room left by the side of this ordered regularity for cause of a different nature.

Only through perils and upheavals can Nations be brought to further developments. May the present upheavals lead to a better world.

All of one’s contemporaries and aging friends are living in a delicate balance, and one feels that one’s own consciousness is no longer as brightly lit as it once was. But then, twilight with its more subdued colors has its charms as well.

The years of anxious searching in the dark, with their intense longing, their alternations of confidence and exhaustion, and final emergence into light—only those who have experienced it can understand that.

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.

Each of us visits this Earth involuntarily, and without an invitation. For me, it is enough to wonder at the secrets.

I made one great mistake in my life, when I signed the letter to Franklin D. Roosevelt recommending that atom bombs be made.

Most people say that it is the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are wrong: it is character.

People like you and me never grow old. We never cease to stand like curious children before the great mystery into which we were born.

My pacifism is not based on any intellectual theory but on a deep antipathy to every form of cruelty and hatred.

There is far too great a disproportion between what one is and what others think one is, or at least what they say they think one is. But one has to take it all with good humor.

I soon learned to scent out what was able to lead to fundamentals and to turn aside from everything else, from the multitude of things that clutter up the mind.

Love brings much happiness, much more than pining brings pain.

Music doesn’t influence research work, but both are nourished by the same sort of longing, and they complement each other in the satisfaction they offer.

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.

Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.

The only real valuable thing is intuition.

My mother died a week ago today in terrible agony. We are all completely exhausted. One feels in one’s bones the significance of blood ties.

The goal of pacifism is possible only though a supranational organization. To stand unconditionally for this cause is the criterion of true pacifism.

On receiving Lord & Taylor Award: It gives me great pleasure, indeed, to see the stubbornness of an incorrigible nonconformist warmly acclaimed.

I believe in intuitions and inspirations. I sometimes feel that I am right. I do not know that I am.

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

This is what I have to say about Bach’s life and work: listen, play, love, revere – and keep your mouth shut.

Possessing you makes me proud & your love makes me happy. I will be doubly happy when I can press you to my heart again and see your loving eyes.

We must begin to inculcate our children against militarism by educating them in the spirit of pacifism. Our schoolbooks glorify war and conceal it’s horror. I would teach peace rather than war.

Today, in twelve countries, young men are resisting conscription and refusing military service. They are the pioneers of a warless world.

I took violin lessons from age 6 to 14, but had no luck with my teachers, for whom music did not transcend mechanical practicing, I really began to learn only when I was about 13 years old, mainly after I had fallen in love with Mozart’s sonatas.

I simply enjoy giving more than receiving in every respect, to not take myself nor the doings of the masses seriously, am not ashamed of my weaknesses and vices, and naturally take things as they come with equanimity and humor. Many people are like this, and I really cannot understand why I have been made into a kind of idol.

Is it not a lack of real affection that scares me away again and again from marriage. Is it a fear of the comfortable life, or nice furniture, of dishonor that I burden myself with, or even the fear of becoming a contented bourgeois?

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.

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.

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.

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

May they not forget to keep pure the great heritage that puts them ahead of the West: the artistic configuration of life, the simplicity and modesty of personal needs, and the purity and serenity of the Japanese soul.

Without creative personalities able to think and judge independently, the upward development of society is as unthinkable as the development of the individual personality without the nourishing soil of the community.

The really valuable thing in the pageant of human life seems to me not the State but the creative, sentient individual, the personality; it alone creates the noble and the sublime, while the herd as such remains dull in thought and full in feeling.

To see with one’s own eyes, to feel and judge without succumbing to the suggestive power of the fashion of the day, to be able to express what one has seen and felt in a trim sentence or even in a cunningly wrought word – is that not glorious? Is it not a proper subject for congratulation?

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

One must take what nature gives as one finds it.

A big fat book full of colored drawings by Japanese children lies always on my table.

There will be no peace on earth, the wounds inflicted by the war will not heal, until this internationalism is restored.

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.

What depressed me most is, of course, the misfortune of my poor parents who have not had a happy moment for so many years. What further hurts deeply is that as an adult man, I have to look on without being able to do anything.

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 release of atom 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.

Those who thoughtlessly make use of the miracles of science and technology, without understanding more about them than a cow eating plants understands about botany, should be ashamed of themselves.

The theme that I recognize in Galileo’s work, is the passionate fight against any kind of dogma based on authority.

The only thing I did was this: in long intervals I have expressed an opinion on public issues whenever they appeared to me so bad and unfortunate that silence would have made me feel guilty of complicity.

My scientific work is motivated by an irresistible longing to understand the secrets of nature and by no other feelings. My love for justice and the striving to contribute towards the improvement of human conditions are quite independent from my scientific interests.

A new idea comes suddenly and in a rather intuitive way, but intuition is nothing but the outcome of earlier intellectual experience.

Suspicion against every kind of authority grew out of this experience, an attitude which has never again left me.

I appeal to all men and women, whether they be eminent or humble, to declare that they will refuse to give any further assistance to war or the preparation of war.

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

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

Setting an example is not the main means of influencing another, it is the only means.

The satisfaction of physical needs is indeed the indispensable precondition of a satisfactory existence, but in itself it is not enough. In order to be content, men must also have the possibility of developing their intellectual and artistic powers to whatever extent accords with their personal characteristics and abilities. *

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.

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.

Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.

My religiosity consists in a humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit that reveals itself in the little that we, with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality.

The students at our universities have ceased as completely as their teachers to enshrine the hopes and ideals of the nation.

I have firmly resolved to bite the dust, when my time comes, with a minimum of medical assistance, and up to then I will sin to my wicked heart’s content.

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

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.

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

After receiving a distinction from Chicago Decalogue Society: How unfortunate a state must a community find itself if it cannot produce a more suitable candidate upon whom to confer such a distinction?

As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.

No one here at the Technikum is up to date in modern physics ? I have already tapped all of them without success. Would I too become so lazy intellectually if I were ever doing well?

Numerous are the wares that nature produces by the dozen, but her choice products are few.

The ordinary objects of human endeavour – property, outward success, luxury – have always seemed to me contemptible.

A hundred times 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.

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 really good music, whether of the East or of the West, cannot be analyzed.

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.

Most people stop looking when they find the proverbial needle in the haystack. I would continue looking to see if there were other needles.

Space by itself, and time by itself, are doomed to fade away into mere shadows, and only a kind union of the two will preserve an independent reality.

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 sometimes thinks he senses it.

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

The example of great and pure individuals in the only thing that can lead us to noble thoughts and deeds.

I lived in solitude in the country and noticed how the monotony of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind.

Three rules of work: Out of clutter find simplicity; From discord find harmony; In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.

Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hopes of reward after death.

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.

The foundation of morality should not be made dependent on myth nor tied to any authority lest doubt about the myth or about the legitimacy of the authority imperil the foundation of sound judgment and action.

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.

I just read a wonderful paper by Lenard on the generation of cathode rays by ultraviolet light. Under the influence of this beautiful piece, I am filled with such happiness and joy that I absolutely must share some of it with you.

I sometimes ask myself how it came about that I was the one to develop the theory of relativity. The reason, I think, is that a normal adult never stops to think about problems of space and time. These are things which he has thought about as a child.

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

One must shy away from questionable undertakings, even when they bear a high-sounding name.

I salute the man who is going through life always helpful, knowing no fear, and to whom aggressiveness and resentment are alien.

I lived in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in maturity.

What I see is a certain something, desolate and grey as infinity. I do not believe that the structure of the human brain is to be blamed for the fact that man cannot grasp infinity.

Human beings can attain a worthy and harmonious life only if they are able to rid themselves, within the limits of human nature, of striving to fulfill wishes of the material kind.

Fulfillment on the moral and esthetic side is a goal which lies closer to the preoccupations of art than it does to those of science.

Make a lot of walks to get healthy and don’t read that much but save yourself some until you’re grown up.

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

I believe in standardizing automobiles. I do not believe in standardizing human beings.

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

I most seriously believe that one does people the best service by giving them some elevating work to do and thus indirectly elevating them.

In two weeks the sheeplike masses of any country can be worked up by the newspaper into such a state of excited fury that men are prepared to put on uniforms and kill and be killed, for the sake of the sordid ends of a few interested parties.

My mother and sister seem somewhat petty and philistine to me, despite the sympathy I feel for them. It is interesting how gradually our life changes us in the very subtleties of our soul, so that even the closest of family ties dwindle into habitual friendship. Deep inside we no longer understand one another, and are incapable of actively empathizing with the other, or knowing what emotions move the other.

A human being is a part of a whole, called by us ‘universe’, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings 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 am by heritage a Jew, by citizenship a Swiss, and by makeup a human being, and only a human being, without any special attachment to any state or national entity whatsoever.

In politics not only are leaders lacking, but the independence of spirit and the sense of justice of the citizen have to a great extent declined.

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.

The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.

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

The cult of individuals is always, in my view, unjustified.

An empty stomach is not a good political adviser.

On the mysterious: It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. He who knows it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle.

The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained liberation from the self.

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

On his cheerful father: He was content to observe without wishing for more.

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

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

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

A calm and modest life brings more happiness than the pursuit of success combined with constant restlessness.

I do not much believe in education. Each man ought to be his own model, however frightful that may be.

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

For a place to be born in, the house is pleasant enough, because on that occasion one makes no great aesthetic demands; instead one begins life screaming at one’s dear ones, without bothering too much about reasons and circumstances.

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.

Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced.

All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded the individual.

I wouldn’t have thought it possible that there could exist such heartless and outright wicked people!?

Death is a reality… Life ends definitely when the subject, by his actions, no longer affects his environment… He can no longer add an iota to the sum total of his experience.

I believe that we have to content ourselves with our imperfect knowledge and understanding and treat values and moral obligations as a purely human problem, the most important of all human problems.

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.

That is the way to learn the most, that when you are doing something with such enjoyment that you don’t notice that the time passes.

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

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

Scientists investigate that which already is.

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

Studying, and striving for truth and beauty in general, is a sphere in which we are allowed to be children throughout life.

When I was young, all I wanted and expected from life was to sit quietly in some corner doing my work without the public paying attention to me.

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.

Only if outward and inner freedom are constantly and consciously pursued is there a possibility of spiritual development and perfection and thus of improving man’s outward and inner life.

Everyone is aware of the difficult and menacing situation in which human society, shrunk into one community with a common fate, finds itself, but only a few act accordingly.

Where there’s a will there’s a way.

I am not very satisfied with my theory of thermoelectricity.

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.

I never failed in mathematics. Before I was fifteen I had mastered differential and integral calculus.

Sometimes the only thought that sustains me and is my only refuge from despair is that I have always done everything I could within my small power, and that year in, year out, I have never permitted myself any amusements or diversions except those afforded by my studies.

I am a horse for single harness, not cut out for tandem or team work. I have never belonged wholeheartedly to country or state, to my circle of friends, or even to my own family. These ties have always been accompanied by a vague aloofness, and the wish to withdraw into myself increases with the years.

Never regard your study as a duty, but as the enviable opportunity to learn the liberating beauty of the intellect for your own personal joy and for the profit of the community to which your later work will belong.

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.

Women always worry about things that men forget; men always worry about things women remember.

We all know that light travels faster than sound. That’s why certain people appear bright until you hear them speak.

Never give up on what you really want to do. The person with big dreams is more powerful than one with all the facts.

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

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

I believe, indeed, that overemphasis on the purely intellectual attitude, often directed solely to the practical and factual, in our education, has led directly to the impairment of ethical values.

Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that some spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe, one that is vastly superior to that of man. In this way the pursuit of science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort, which is surely quite different from the religiosity of someone more naive.

My passionate interest in social justice and social responsibility has always stood in curious contrast to a marked lack of desire for direct association with men and women.

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

I have remained a simple fellow who asks nothing of the world; only my youth is gone – the enchanting youth that forever walks on air.

The scientist find his rewards in what Henri Poincare calls the joy of comprehension, and not in the possibilities of application to which any discovery may lead.

Today also there is an urge toward social progress, toward tolerance and freedom of thought, toward a larger political unity… But the students at our universities have ceased as completely as their teachers to embody the hopes and ideals of the people.

We will not change the hearts of other men by mechanisms, but by changing our hearts and speaking bravely… When we are clear in heart and mind – only then – shall we find courage to surmount the fear which haunts the world.

This world is a strange madhouse. Currently, every coachman and every waiter is debating whether relativity theory is correct.

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

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

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

I no longer need to take part in the competition of the big brains. Participating [in the process] has always seem to me an awful type of slavery no less evil than the passion for money or power.

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.

When I have no special problem to occupy my mind, I love to reconstruct proofs of mathematical and physical theorems that have long been known to me. There is no goal in this, merely an opportunity to indulge in the pleasant occupation of thinking.

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.

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.

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

On how he sees himself: A person with no roots anywhere…a stranger everywhere.

The real goal of my research has always been the simplification and unification of the system of theoretical physics.

I am neither a German citizen, nor do I believe in anything that can be described as a ‘Jewish faith.’ But I am a Jew and glad to belong to the Jewish people, though I do not regard it in any way as chosen.

The most valuable thing a teacher can impart to children is not knowledge and understanding per se but a longing for knowledge and understanding, and an appreciation for intellectual values, whether they be artistic, scientific, or moral.

The progress of science presupposes the possibility of unrestricted communications of all results and judgments – freedom of expression and instruction in all realms of intellectual endeavor.

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

Equations are more important to me, because politics is for the present, but an equation is something for eternity.

I, an old man, greet you Japanese schoolchildren from afar and hope that your generation may some day put mine to shame.

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

Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.

It is true that my parents were worried because I began to speak relatively late, so much so that they consulted a doctor. I can’t say how old I was then, certainly not less than three.

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.

This evening I sat 2 hours at the window and thought about how the law of interaction of molecular forces could be determined.

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

Innovation is not the product of logical thought, although the result is tied to logical structure.

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

Compassionate people are geniuses in the art of living, more necessary to the dignity, security, and joy of humanity than the discoverers of knowledge.

When I was a little boy my father showed me a small compass, and the enormous impression that it made on me certainly played a role in my life.

I am a real lone wolf who has never wholeheartedly belonged to the State, to my country, my circle of friends and not even to my family but who, despite all these bonds, has constantly experienced a feeling of strangeness and the need for solitude.

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.

People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.

Copernicus, through his work and the greatness of his personality, taught man to be modest.

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.

The world is not dangerous because of those who do harm but because of those who look at it without doing anything.

The man of science is a poor philosopher.

The destiny of civilized humanity depends more than ever on the moral forces it is capable of generating.

Young people especially like to contemplate bold projects. Also, it is natural for a serious young man to envision his desired goals with the greatest possible precision.

Although I have a regular work schedule, I take time to go for long walks on the beach so that I can listen to what is going on inside my head. If my work isn’t going well, I lie down in the middle of a workday and gaze at the ceiling while I listen and visualize what goes on in my imagination.

In science, moreover, the work of the individual is so bound up with that of his scientific predecessors and contemporaries that it appears almost as an impersonal product of his generation.

There is a race between mankind and the universe. Mankind is trying to build bigger, better, faster, and more foolproof machines. The universe is trying to build bigger, better, and faster fools. So far the universe is winning.

A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labours of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I received and am still receiving.

Mankind invented the atomic bomb, but no mouse would ever construct a mousetrap.

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.

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

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

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

Concern for man and his fate must always form the chief objective of all technological endeavors… in order that the creations of our minds shall be a blessing and not a curse to mankind. Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations.

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.

Our entire much-praised technological progress, and civilization generally, could be compared to an axe in the hand of a pathological criminal.

A spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe, a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble.