Albert Einstein Quotations | Page 3

Knowledge is limited; but imagination encircles the world.

Knowledge of what is does not open the door directly to what should be. If one asks the whence derives the authority of fundamental ends, since they cannot be stated and justified merely by reason, one can only answer: they exist in a healthy society

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.

I am satisfied with the mystery of the eternity of life and with the awareness and a glimpse of the marvelous structure of the existing world, together with the devoted striving to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the Reason that manifest

I am convinced that He (God) does not play dice.

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.

If A equals success, then the formula is A equals X plus Y and Z, with X being work, Y play, and Z keeping your mouth shut.

for those who would joyously march in rank and file, they have already earned my contempt, for they were given a large brain by accident when a spinal chord would have sufficed.

For there is no secret and there is no defense; there is no possibility of control except through the aroused understanding and insistence of the peoples of the world. We scientists recognise our inescapable responsibility to carry to our fellow citi

I don't try to imagine a God; it suffices to stand in awe of the structure of the world, insofar as it allows our inadequate senses to appreciate it.

God does not play dice with the universe.

Here I am, just an actress with nothing to say and crowds of people turn up to see me. Yet here is Einstein and the only person who turns up for him is myself.

When I am judging a theory, I ask myself whether, if I were God, I would have arranged the world in such a way.

I maintain that cosmic religiousness is the strongest and most noble driving force of scientific research.

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, for knowledge is limited while imagination embraces the entire world.

God is subtle, but He is not malicious. I cannot believe that God plays dice with the world.

Keep on sowing your seed, for you never know which will grow -- perhaps it all will.

Nationalism is an infantile disease, the measles of mankind

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

I thought marketing this product to kids ages four and older is outrageous,

It is high time that the ideal of success should be replaced by the ideal of service

It is appallingly obvious our technology has exceeded our humanity

Out of clutter, find Simplicity. From discord, find Harmony. In the middle of difficulty lies Opportunity.

Out of clutter find simplicity.From Discord make harmony.In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.

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.

It is nothing short of a miracle that modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry.

To know is nothing at all; to imagine is everything.

To make a goal of comfort or happiness has never appealed to me; a system of ethics built on this basis would be sufficient only for a herd of cattle

The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them.

Thus the partial differential equation entered theoretical physics as a handmaid, but has gradually become mistress.

Understanding of our fellow human beings...becomes fruitful only when it is sustained by sympathetic feelings in joy and sorrow.

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

Whoever undertakes to set himself up as judge in the field of truth and knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the Gods.

The only way to escape the personal corruption of praise is to go on working.

The question hat drives me hazy: Am I or the others crazy?

Science is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

X is work. Y is play. Z is keep your mouth shut.

I believe serious progress (in the abolition of war) can be achieved only when men become organized on an international scale and refuse, as a body, to enter military or war service.

I appeal to all men and women, whether they be eminent or humble, to declare that they will refuse to give any further assistance to war or the preparation of war.

... one does people the best service by giving them some elevating work to do and thus indirectly elevating them.

One ought to be ashamed to make use of the wonders of science embodied in a radio set, the while appreciating them as little as a cow appreciates the botanic marvels in the plants she munches.

The future is an unknown, but a somewhat predictable unknown. To look to the future we must first look back upon the past. That is where the seeds of the future were planted. I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.

If one asks the whence derives the authority of fundamental ends, since they cannot be stated and justified merely by reason, one can only answer: they exist in a healthy society as powerful traditions, which act upon the conduct and aspirations and judgments of the individuals; they are there, that is, as something living, without its being necessary to find justification for their existence.

It is my conviction that pure mathematical construction enables us to discover the concepts and the laws connecting them, which gives us the key to the understanding of nature ... In a certain sense, therefore, I hold it true that pure thought can grasp reality, as the ancients dreamed.

No one but a theorist believes his theory; everyone puts faith in a laboratory result but the experimenter himself.

Nothing in the world makes people so afraid as the influence of independent-minded people.

Conventional words or other signs have to be sought for laboriously only in a second stage, where the associative play already referred to is sufficiently established and can be reproduced at will.

There is, fortunately, a minority composed of those who recognize early in their lives that the most beautiful and satisfying experiences open to humankind are not derived from the outside, but are bound up with the development of the individual's own feeling, thinking and acting. The genuine artists, investigators and thinkers have always been persons of this kind. However inconspicuously the life of these individuals runs its course, none the less the fruits of their endeavors are the most valuable contributions which one generation can make to its successors.

Where you see difficulty, I see opportunity.

The best that Gauss has given us was likewise an exclusive production. If he had not created his geometry of surfaces, which served Riemann as a basis, it is scarcely conceivable that anyone else would have discovered it. I do not hesitate to confess that to a certain extent a similar pleasure may be found by absorbing ourselves in questions of pure geometry.

The most fundamental question we can ever ask ourselves is whether or not the universe we live in is friendly or hostile.

The physicists say that I am a mathematician, and the mathematicians say that I am a physicist. I am a completely isolated man and though everybody knows me, there are very few people who really know me.

It is certainly true that principles cannot be more securely founded than on experience and consciously clear thinking.

Hell! there ain't no rules around here! We are tryin' to accomplish somep'n!

Only a life lived for others is a life worth while . I have no special gift. I am only passionately curious . I want to know God's thoughts... all the rest are details. Joy in looking and comprehending is nature's most beautiful gift. It's not that I'm so smart , it's just that I stay with problems longer.

The State idea is not according to my heart. I cannot understand why it is needed. It is connected with narrow-minded and economic obstacles. I believe it is bad. I have always been against it.

This must be changed, if only in America's own interest. The last war has shown that there are no longer any barriers between the continents and that the destinies of all countries are closely interwoven. The people of this country must realize that they have a great responsibility in the sphere of international politics. The part of passive spectator is unworthy of this country and is bound in the end to lead to disaster all round.

It is difficult even to attach a precise meaning to the term "scientific truth." So different is the meaning of the word "truth" according to whether we are dealing with a fact of experience, a mathematical proposition or a scientific theory. "Religious truth" conveys nothing clear to me at all.

[Kepler] had to realize clearly that logical-mathematical theoretizing, no matter how lucid, could not guarantee truth by itself; that the most beautiful logical theory means nothing in natural science without comparison with the exactest experience. Without this philosophic attitude, his work would not have been possible.

It would be foolish to despise tradition. But with our growing self-consciousness and increasing intelligence we must begin to control tradition and assume a critical attitude toward it, if human relations are ever to change for the better.

Time is just something we invented to make motion seem simple.

Compound interest is the eighth natural wonder of the world and the most powerful thing I have ever encountered.

Anonymity is no excuse for stupidity.

Philosophy is empty if it isn't based on science. Science discovers, philosophy interprets.

Science can only state what is, not what should be.

I have also considered many scientific plans during my pushing you around in your pram!

Indeed, it is not intellect, but intuition which advances humanity. Intuition tells man his purpose in this life.

My God may not be your idea of God, but one thing I know of my God he makes me a humanitarian. I am a proud Jew because we gave the world the Bible and the story of Joseph.

Make a lot of walks to get healthy and don't read that much but save yourself some until you're grown up.

What is significant in one's own existence one is hardly aware, and it certainly should not bother the other fellow. What does a fish know about the water in which he swims all his life?

There has been an earth for a little more than a billion years. As for the question of the end of it I advise: Wait and see!

Who would have thought around 1900 that in fifty years time we would know so much more and understand so much less.

But then, after all, we are all alike, for we are all derived from the monkey.

I never failed in mathematics. Before I was fifteen I had mastered differential and integral calculus.

The idea of achieving security through national armament is, at the present state of military technique, a disastrous illusion.

On quantum theory I use up more brain grease (rough translation of German idiom) than on relativity.

Since others have explained my theory, I can no longer understand it myself.

In their struggle for the ethical good, teachers of religion must have the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal god, that is, give up that source of fear and hope which in the past placed such vast power in the hands of priests. In their labors they will have to avail themselves of those forces which are capable of cultivating the Good, the True, and the Beautiful in humanity itself. This is, to be sure, a more difficult but an incomparably more worthy task...

We must remember that we do not observe nature as it actually exists, but nature exposed to our methods of perception. The theories determine what we can or cannot observe...Reality is an illusion, albeit a persistent one.

To me it is enough to wonder at the secrets

[Max Planck] was one of the finest people I have ever known... but he really didn't understand physics, [because] during the eclipse of 1919 he stayed up all night to see if it would confirm the bending of light by the gravitational field. If he had really understood [general relativity], he would have gone to bed the way I did

The state is made for man, not man for the state.... That is to say, the state should be our servant and not we its slaves

One can't teach a cat not to catch birds

Concern for man himself must always constitute the chief objective of all technological effort

Insofar as we may at all claim that slavery has been abolished today, we owe its abolition to the practical consequences of science

A mathematical equation stands forever

Genius is making complex ideas simple, not making simple ideas complex

I want to know all God's thoughts.

The only real valuable thing is intuition. The intellect has little to do on the road to discovery

We must not only learn to tolerate our differences. We must welcome them as the richness and diversity which can lead to true intelligence.

Study and, in general, the pursuit of truth and beauty is the sphere in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives." "Study and, in general, the pursuit of truth and beauty is the sphere in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.

The cult of individual personalities is always, in my view, unjustified. To be sure, nature distributes her gifts variously among her children. But there are plenty of the well-endowed ones too, thank God, and I am firmly convinced that most of them live quiet, unregarded lives.

Private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information. It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights.

Nationalism is the measels of mankind.

If I were wrong, wouldn't one be enough?

A permanent peace cannot be prepared by threats but only by the honest attempt to create a mutual trust. However strong national armaments may be, they do not create military security for any nation nor do they guarantee the maintenance of peace.

The equation for ego is: One over Knowledge.

Capitalism creates a huge community of producers who are unceasingly striving to deprive each other of the fruits of their collective labor, and an oligarchy that cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized society....the subjugation is not by force but because the privileged class has long ago established a system of values by which the people were thenceforth, to a large extent unconsciously, guided in their social behavior.