Albert Einstein Quotes - Page 2

I am not a genius, I am just curious. I ask many questions. and when the answer is simple, then God is answering.

God is clever but not dishonest.

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.

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

If you wish to learn from the theoretical physicist anything about the methods which he uses, I would give you the following piece of advice: Don't listen to his words, examine his achievements. For to the discoverer in that field, the constructions of his imagination appear so necessary and so natural that he is apt to treat them not as the creations of his thoughts but as given realities.

Common to all these types is the anthropomorphic character of their conception of God. In general, only individuals of exceptional endowments, and exceptionally high-minded communities, rise to any considerable extent above this level. But there is a third stage of religious experience which belongs to all of them, even though it is rarely found in a pure form: I shall call it cosmic religious feeling. It is very difficult to elucidate this feeling to anyone who is entirely without it, especially as there is no anthropomorphic conception of God corresponding to it.

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

A successful man is he who receives a great deal from his fellow men usually incomparably more than corresponds to his service to them. The value of a man however should be seen in what he gives and not in what he is able to receive.

However rare true love may be, it is less so than true friendship.

I love Humanity but I hate humans

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

I believe in intuition and inspiration. 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.

The environment is everything that isn't me.

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.

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.

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.

It is harder to crack prejudice than an atom.

Small is the number of them that see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.

Is it not better for a man to die for a cause in which he believes, such as peace, than to suffer for a cause in which he does not believe, such as war?

It is the theory which decided what can be observed.

One must divide one's time between politics and equations. But our equations are much more important to me, because politics is for the present, while our equations are for eternity.

Student is not a container you have to fill but a torch you have to light up.

But science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration toward truth and understanding. This source of feeling, however, springs from the sphere of religion. To this there also belongs the faith in the possibility that the regulations valid for the world of existence are rational, that is, comprehensible to reason. I cannot conceive of a genuine scientist without that profound faith. The situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

Peace is not merely the absence of war but the presence of justice, of law, of order —in short, of government.

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

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

If my theory of relativity is proven successful Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare that I am 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.

A true genius admits that he/she knows nothing.

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.

I received your letter of June 10th. I have never talked to a Jesuit priest in my life and I am astonished by the audacity to tell such lies about me. From the viewpoint of a Jesuit priest I am, of course, and have always been an atheist.

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

Science without religion is lame religion without science is blind.

How does it happen that a properly endowed natural scientist comes to concern himself with epistemology? Is there no more valuable work in his specialty? I hear many of my colleagues saying, and I sense it from many more, that they feel this way. I cannot share this sentiment. When I think about the ablest students whom I have encountered in my teaching, that is, those who distinguish themselves by their independence of judgment and not merely their quick-wittedness, I can affirm that they had a vigorous interest in epistemology. They happily began discussions about the goals and methods of science, and they showed unequivocally, through their tenacity in defending their views, that the subject seemed important to them. Indeed, one should not be surprised at this.

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

If tomorrow were never to come, it would not be worth living today.

Curiosity is more important than knowledge.

We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made.

The single most important decision any of us will ever make is whether or not to believe the universe is friendly.

Everything has changed. . . except the way we think. The aim [of education] must be the training of independently acting and thinking individuals, who, however, see in the service of community their highest life problems

I believe that Gandhi’s views were the most enlightened of all the political men in our time. We should strive to do things in his spirit: not to use violence in fighting for our cause, but by non-participation in anything you believe is evil.

The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything except our thinking. Thus, we are drifting toward catastrophe beyond conception. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.

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

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

E = MC^2: Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared.

Any fool can know. The point is to understand.

PARAPHRASE: Genius is not that you are smarter than everyone else. It is that you are ready to receive the inspiration.

Student: Dr. Einstein, Aren't these the same questions as last year's [physics] final exam?Dr. Einstein: Yes; But this year the answers are different.

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

The framing of a problem is often far more essential than its solution

When I was young I found out that the big toe always ends up making a hole in a sock.So I stopped wearing socks.

Still there are moments when one feels free from one’s own identification with human limitations and inadequacies. At such moments, one imagines that one stands on some spot of a small planet, gazing in amazement at the cold yet profoundly moving beauty of the eternal, the unfathomable: life and death flow into one, and there is neither evolution nor destiny; only being.

The word 'God' is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation, no matter how subtle, can (for me) change this.

We experience ourselves our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of 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.

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.

Those who have the privilege to know have the duty to act, and in that action are the seeds of new knowledge.

It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty. To the contrary, I believe it would be possible to rob even a healthy beast of prey of its voraciousness, if it were possible, with the aid of a whip, to force the beast to devour continuously, even when not hungry.

Do you really believe that the moon isn’t there when nobody looks?

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.

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

The most aggravating thing about the younger generation is that I no longer belong to it.