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.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
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.
Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.
Insanity doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
He who joyfully marches 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.
Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.
Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.
The important thing is not to stop questioning.
The hardest thing to understand in the world is the income tax.
The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them.
Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.
The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.
Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.
We should take care not to make the intellect our god it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.
Most people go on living their everyday life half frightened, half indifferent, they behold the ghostly tragi-comedy that is being performed on the international stage before the eyes and ears of the world.
I don't know what kind of weapons will be used in the third world war, assuming there will be a third world war. But I can tell you what the fourth world war will be fought with -- stone clubs.
The attempt to combine wisdom and power has only rarely been successful and then only for a short while.
I don't know what will be used in the next world war, but the 4th will be fought with stones.
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.
The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is at all comprehensible.
What really interests me is whether God had any choice in the creation of the world.
It is only to the individual that a soul is given.
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)
It is the theory that decides what we can observe.
To punish me for my contempt for authority, fate made me an authority myself.
The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.
Our defense is not in our armaments, nor in science, nor in going underground. Our defense is in law and order.
Intellectuals solve problems geniuses prevent them.
What is inconceivable about the universe is that it is at all conceivable.
I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity.
If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts.
We scientists, whose tragic destiny it has been to make the methods of annihilation ever more gruesome and more effective, must consider it our solemn and transcendent duty to do all in our power in preventing these weapons from being used for the brutal purpose for which they were invented.
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.
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 fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is I would rather be torn to shreds than be part of so base an action It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.
The process of scientific discovery is, in effect, a continual flight from wonder.
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.
Each of us visits this Earth involuntarily, and without an invitation. For me, it is enough to wonder at the secrets.
A storm broke loose in my mind.
When the Special Theory of Relativity began to germinate in me, I was visited by all sorts of nervous conflicts... I used to go away for weeks in a state of confusion.
We believe that an informed citizenry will act for life and not for death. (on atomic energy)
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 what this delicate little plant needs more than anything, besides stimulation, is freedom. 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.
By academic freedom I understand the right to search for truth and to publish and teach what one holds to be true. This right implies also a duty one must not conceal any part of what on has recognized to be true. It is evident that any restriction on academic freedom acts in such a way as to hamper the dissemination of knowledge among the people and thereby impedes national judgment and action.
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
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.
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.
Why is it that nobody understands me and everybody likes me
There has already been published by the bucketfuls such brazen lies and utter fictions about me that I would long since have gone to my grave if I had let myself pay attention to that.
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.
Emc (Energy equals mass times the square of the speed of light.) Original statement If a body gives off the energy L in the form of radiation, its mass diminshes by Lc.
To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull facilities can comprehend only in the most primitive forms--this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I belong to the ranks of the devoutly religious men.
Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for insects as well as for the stars. Human beings, vegetables or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper.
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 might be killed, but enough men capable of thinking, and enough books, would be left to start again, and civilization could be restored.
Physical concepts are free creations of the human mind, and are not, however it may seem, uniquely determined by the external world.
Something deeply hidden had to be behind things.
Innumerable voices have been asserting for some time now that human society is passing through a crisis, that its stability has been gravely shattered. It is characteristic of such a situation that individuals feel indifferent or even hostile toward the group, small or large, to which they belong. In order to illustrate my meaning, let me record here a personal experience. I recently discussed with an intelligent and well-disposed man the threat of another war, which in my opinion would seriously endanger the existence of mankind, and I remarked that only a supranational organization would offer protection from that danger. Thereupon my visitor, very calmly and coolly, said to me Why are you so deeply opposed to the disappearance of the human race
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.
All our thoughts and concepts are called up by sense-experiences and have a meaning only in reference to these sense-experiences. On the other hand, however, they are products of the spontaneous activity of our minds they are thus in no wise logical consequences of the contents of these sense-experiences. If, therefore, we wish to grasp the essence of a complex of abstract notions we must for the one part investigate the mutual relationships between the concepts and the assertions made about them for the other, we must investigate how they are related to the experiences.
There was this huge world out there, independent of us human beings and standing before us like a great, eternal riddle, at least partly accessible to our inspection and thought. The contemplation of that world beckoned like a liberation.
Never regard study as a duty but as an enviable opportunity to learn to know the liberating influence of beauty in the realm of the spirit for your own personal joy and to the profit of the community to which your later works belong.
I have reached an age when, if someone tells me to wear socks, I don't have to.
If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.
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.
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.
True art is characterized by an irresistible urge in the creative artist.
Those people have seen something. What it is I do not know and I can not care to know. (on flying saucers)
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.
Quantum mechanics is certainly imposing. But an inner voice tells me that it is not yet the real thing. The theory says a lot, but does not really bring us closer to the secret of the 'Old One.' I, at any rate, am convinced that He is not playing at dice.
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.
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.
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish.
Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.
He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead his eyes are closed.
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.
I think and think for months and years. Ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right.
An empty stomach is not a good political advisor.
In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.
Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized.
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 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.
What is the meaning of human life, or of organic life altogether To answer this question at all implies a religion. Is there any sense then, you ask, in putting it I answer, the man who regards his own life and that of his fellow creatures as meaningless is not merely unfortunate but almost disqualified for life.
The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious - the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science.
I do not believe in the immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern without any superhuman authority behind it.
Any power must be an enemy of mankind which enslaves the individual by terror and force, whether it arises under the Fascist or the Communist flag. All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded to the individual.
The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.
Anger dwells only in the bosom of fools.
...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.
If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.
Why does this magnificent applied science, which saves work and makes life easier, bring us little happiness The simple answer runs because we have not yet learned to make sensible use of it.
In light of knowledge attained, the happy achievement seems almost a matter of course, and any intelligent student can grasp it without too much trouble. But the years of anxious searching in the dark, with their intense longing, their alterations of confidence and exhaustion and the final emergence into the light -- only those who have experienced it can understand it.
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 His thoughts the rest are details.
You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.
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.
If I were to start taking care of my grooming, I would no longer be my own self ... so the hell with it ... I will continue to be unconcerned about it, which surely has the advantage that I'm left in peace by many a fop who would otherwise come to see me.
I like neither new clothes nor new kinds of food.
It would be a sad situation if the wrapper were better than the meat wrapped inside it. (referring to clothing)
If most of us are ashamed of shabby clothes and shoddy furniture, let us be more ashamed of shabby ideas and shoddy philosophies.
There is an atmosphere of well-sounding oratory that likes to attach itself to dress clothes. Away with it
A human being is part of a whole, called by us the '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 us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
If a cluttered desk signs a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign
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.
There comes a time when the mind takes a higher plane of knowledge but can never prove how it got there.
Concern for man himself and his fate must always form the chief interest of all technical endeavors, concern for the great unsolved problems of the organization of labor and the distribution of goods--in order that the creations of our mind shall be a blessing and not a curse to mankind. Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations.
I believe that whoever tries to think things through honestly will soon recognize how unworthy and even fatal is the traditional bias against Negroes. What can the man of good will do to combat this deeply rooted prejudice He must have the courage to set an example by words and deed, and must watch lest his children become influenced by racial bias.
Bias against the Negro is the worst disease from which the society of our nation suffers.
The highest destiny of the individual is to serve rather than to rule.
I feel that you are justified in looking into the future with true assurance, because you have a mode of living in which we find the joy of life and the joy of work harmoniously combined. Added to this is the spirit of ambition which pervades your very being, and seems to make the day's work like a happy child at play. (referring to America)
A theory can be proved by experiment but no path leads from experiment to the birth of a theory.
The American lives even more for his goals, for the future, than the European. Life for him is always becoming, never being.
The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.
As long as there are sovereign nations possessing great power, war is inevitable.
If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it
Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.
If A equals success, then the formula is A equals X plus Y plus Z. X is work. Y is play. Z is keep your mouth shut.
I am absolutely convinced that no wealth in the world can help humanity forward, even in the hands of the most devoted worker. The example of great and pure individuals is the only thing that can lead us to noble thoughts and deeds. Money only appeals to selfishness and irresistibly invites abuse. Can anyone imagine Moses, Jesus or Ghandi armed with the money-bags of Carnegie
Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.
Gravitation can not be held responsible for people falling in love.
My religion consists of a humble admiration of the unlimitable superior who reveals Himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God.
The wirless 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.
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.
Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are not even capable of forming such opinions.
The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one.
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 my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.
Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.
Since I do not foresee that atomic energy is to be a great boon for a long time, I have to say that for the present it is a menace. Perhaps it is well that it should be. It may intimidate the human race into bringing order into its international affairs, which, without the pressure of fear, it would not do.
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.
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.
Of what significance is one's one existence, one is basically unaware. What does a fish know about the water in which he swims all his life The bitter and the sweet come from outside. The hard from within, from one's own efforts. For the most part I do what my own nature drives me to do. It is embarrassing to earn such respect and love for it.
The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.
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.
Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death.
It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.
Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.
Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.
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.
The difference between what the most and the least learned people know is inexpressibly trivial in relation to that which is unknown.
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.
Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything one learned in school.
We still do not know one thousandth of one percent of what nature has revealed to us.
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.
Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.
Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the Gods.
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.
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.
Generations to come will find it difficult to believe that a man such as Gandhi ever walked the face of this earth.
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.
I never think of the future - it comes soon enough.
Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters.
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.
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.
Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it.
The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.
God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates empirically.
A person starts to live when he can live outside himself.
Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.
We cannot dispair of humanity, since we are ourselves human beings.
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.
No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right a single experiment can prove me wrong.
Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal.
Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing.
How I wish that somewhere there existed an island for those who are wise and of goodwill In such a place even I would be an ardent patriot.
The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there's no risk of accident for someone who's dead.
The state exists for man, not man for the state. The same may be said of science. These are old phrases, coined by people who saw in human individuality the highest human value. I would hesitate to repeat them, were it not for the ever recurring danger that they may be forgotten, especially in these days of organization and stereotypes.
The physicist cannot simply surrender to the philosopher the critical contemplation of the theoretical foundations for he himself knows best and feels most surely where the shoe pinches.... he must try to make clear in his own mind just how far the concepts which he uses are justified... The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.
As long as Nazi violence was unleashed only, or mainly, against the Jews, the rest of the world looked on passively and even treaties and agreements were made with the patently criminal government of the Third Reich.... The doors of Palestine were closed to Jewish immigrants, and no country could be found that would admit those forsaken people. They were left to perish like their brothers and sisters in the occupied countries. We shall never forget the heroic efforts of the small countries, of the Scandinavian, the Dutch, the Swiss nations, and of individuals in the occupied part of Europe who did all in their power to protect Jewish lives.
Since that deluge of newspaper articles I have been so flooded with questions, invitations, suggestions, that I keep dreaming I am roasting in Hell, and the mailman is the devil eternally yelling at me, showering me with more bundles of letters at my head because I have not answered the old ones.
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.
Of all the communities available to us there is not one I would want to devote myself to, except for the society of the true searchers, which has very few living members at any time.
I have become rather like King Midas, except that everything turns not into gold but into a circus.
The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.
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 only real valuable thing is intuition.
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.
In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must, above all, be a sheep.
The Lord God is subtle, but malicious He is not.
The man who regards his own life and that of his fellow creatures as meaningless is not merely unhappy but hardly fit for life.
It is not the fruits of scientific research that elevate man and enrich his nature. but the urge to understand, the intellectual work, creative or receptive.
The crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a perparation for his future career.
Do not worry about your problems in mathematics. I assure you, my problems with mathematics are much greater than yours.
The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility.
Relativity applies to physics, not ethics.
Common sense is that layer of prejudices which we acquire before we are sixteen.
A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depends on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the measure as I have received and am still receiving.
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.
I don't know how man will fight World War III, but I do know how they will fight World War IV with sticks and stones.
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler.
The most beautiful and most profound emotion we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. So to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. To know that which is impenetretrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive forms-this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness.
If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.
Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -how passionately I hate them
It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.
God may be subtle, but He isn't mean.
If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal. Not to people or things.
The true measure of a man is the degree to which he has managed to subjugate his ego.
Imagination is more important than knowledge...
Ethical axioms are found and tested not very differently from the axioms of science. Truth is what stands the test of experience.
If I had only known, I would have been a locksmith.
I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater.
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.
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 ideals which have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth. The trite subjects of human efforts, possessions, outward success, luxury have always seemed to me contemptible.
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.
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.
Truth is what stands the test of experience.
At any rate, I am convinced that He God does not play dice.
It is the duty of every citizen according to his best capacities to give validity to his convictions in political affairs.
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.
If A is success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x y is play and z is keeping your mouth shut.
Quotes from Albert Einstein (211 quotes)
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