|
Professor |
Albert Einstein is considered one of the greatest scientific
minds of all time, yet-as these quotes show, he had a unique
insight to human frailities and insecurities as well. Imagination is more important than knowledge.
Curiosity has its own reason for existence.
If I have seen further than others, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.
So long as they don't get violent, I want to let everyone say what they wish, for I myself have always said exactly what pleased me.
The example of great and pure individuals is the only thing that can lead us to noble thoughts and deeds.
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.
A large part of history is replete with the struggle for human rights, an eternal struggle in which final vistory can never be won. But to tire in that struggle would mean the ruin of society.
Yesterday idolized, today hated and spit upon, tomorrow forgotten and the day after tomorrow promoted to Sainthood. The only salvation is a sense of humor.
I know a little about nature and hardly anything about men.
My political ideal is democracy. let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized.
To punish me for my contempt for authority, fate made me an authority myself.
Do not worry about your difficulties in mathematics; I can assure you that mine are still greater.
We scientists, whose tragic destination has been to help in making the methods of annihilation 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. What task could possibly be more important to us? What social aim could be closer to our hearts?
I still work indefatigably at science but I have become an evil renegade who does not wish physics to be based on probabilities.
Is our race so destructive of wisdom, so incapable of impartial love, so blind to even the simplest dictates of self-preservation that the last proof of silly cleverness is to be the extermination of all life on our planet?
The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one.
How does one activate people who are tired, harassed, and also lazy? It is like founding a new religion. It almost never succeeds, and if it does succeed, one is at a loss to know why.
Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust; we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisable piper.
Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.
I want to know God's thoughts; the rest are details.
The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.
Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.
We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.
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.
I am convinced that God does not play dice.
I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.
Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind.
Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.
Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.
Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it.
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.
The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.
God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates empirically.
Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal.
Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.
Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school.
Equations are more important to me, because politics is for the present, but an equation is something for eternity.
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.
Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.
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.
Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.
I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there's no risk of accident for someone who's dead.
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.
Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them!
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?
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.
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.