Albert Einstein Quotes - Page 3

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

[The golden proportion] is a scale of proportions which makes the bad difficult [to produce] and the good easy.

A society's competitive advantage will come not from how well its schools teach the multiplication and periodic tables, but from how well they stimulate imagination and creativity.

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.

That which is impenetrable to us really exists. Behind the secrets of nature remains something subtle, intangible, and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion.

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

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

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.

You never fail until you stop trying.

Nationalism is an infantile sickness. It is the measles of the human race.

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.

Dancers are the athletes of God.

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. These subtilised interpretations are highly manifold according to their nature and have almost nothing to do with the original text. For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions.

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

Bureaucracy is the death of all sound work.

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

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

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

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity, but don't rule out malice.

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

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

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

the real purpose of socialism is precisely to overcome and advance beyond the predatory phase of human development

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

When you sit with a nice girl for two hours you think it's only a minute. But when you sit on a hot stove for a minute you think it's two hours. That's relativity.

True human progress is based less on the inventive mind than on the conscience of such men as Brandeis.~ Albert Einstein

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. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead and his eyes are dimmed.

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." (first published 1937)]

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

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

Somebody who only reads newspapers and at best books of contemporary authors looks to me like an extremely near-sighted person who scorns eyeglasses. He is completely dependent on the prejudices and fashions of his times, since he never gets to see or hear anything else.

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

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

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

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.

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

I see my life in terms of music.

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 beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.

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.

You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created.

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

The principal art of the teacher is to awaken the joy in creation and knowledge.

It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere... Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior 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.

Creativity is the residue of time wasted.

Gandhi, the greatest political genius of our time, has pointed the way. He was shown of what sacrifices people are capable once they have found the right way. His work for the liberation of India is a living testimony to the fact that a will governed by firm conviction is stronger than a seemingly invincible material power.

I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots.

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

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

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.

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.

Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the descernible laws and connections, 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 fact, religious.

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

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

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

Hope that justice will be done to those brave men who stood up for their convictions.

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

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

Coincidence is God's way of staying anonymous.

Life without playing music is inconceivable for me. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music, I get most joy in life out of music.