Quotes from Albert Einstein

  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.

Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.

Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous. (God is the rule of nature)

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

The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it.

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

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

Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.

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

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

The only source of knowledge is experience.

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

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

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

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.

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

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

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

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

Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.

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

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

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

When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That's relativity.

In matters of truth and justice, there is no difference between large and small problems, for issues concerning the treatment of people are all the same.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anger dwells only in the bosom of fools.

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.

Intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them.

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

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.

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

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

I never think of the future - it comes soon enough

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

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

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

Love is a better teacher than duty.

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

An empty stomach is not a good political adviser.

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

Information is not knowledge.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

I want to go when I want. It is tasteless to prolong life artificially. I have done my share; it is time to go. I will do it elegantly.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.

Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.

The only real valuable thing is intuition.

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

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

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

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

I love to travel, but hate to arrive.

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 man of science is a poor philosopher.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Never lose a holy curiosity

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.

One may say the eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility.

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.

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.

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 faster you go, the shorter you are.

It was the experience of mystery - even if mixed with fear - that engendered religion.

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

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.

One strength of the communist system of the East is that it has some of the character of a religion and inspires the emotions of a religion.

To the Master's honor all must turn, each in its track, without a sound, forever tracing Newton's ground.