Albert Einstein

"The world is a dangerous place. Not because of those who do terrible things. But
because of those who let them do it."
"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we
created them."
"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."
"As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, as far
as they are certain, they do not refer to reality."
"In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must, above all, be
a sheep."
"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."
"The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking...the
solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I
should have become a watchmaker."
Not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously
uses his intelligence."
"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."
"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and
social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeeded be in a poor way
if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."
"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."
"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."
"...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."
"A human being is a part of a whole, called by us _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 to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from
this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures
and the whole of nature in its beauty."
"Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted
counts." (Sign hanging in Einstein's office at Princeton)
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."
"The only real valuable thing is intuition."
"A person starts to live when he can live outside himself."
"Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character."
"I never think of the future. It comes soon enough."
"The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility."
"Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing."
"Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new."
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."
"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."
"The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking."
"Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal."
"The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax."
"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."
"I cannot believe that God would choose to play dice with the universe." or
sometimes quoted as "God does not play dice with the universe."
"Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocre minds. The
latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary
prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence."
"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."
Science, Philosophy and Religion: a Symposium (1941) ch. 13
"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."
"What Life Means to Einstein: An Interview by George Sylvester Viereck," for the
October 26, 1929 issue of The Saturday Evening Post.
"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of
all true art and 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."
Quoted on pg. 289 of Adventures of a Mathematician, by S. M. Ulam(Charles
Scribner's Sons, New York, 1976). Apparently these words also occur somewhere in
What I Believe (1930).
"Gravitation can not be held responsible for people falling in love"
"Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts."
"Science is the century-old endeavour to bring together by means of systematic
thought the perceptible phenomena of this world into as thorough-going an
association as possible. To put it boldly, it is the attempt at a posterior
reconstruction of existen ce by the process of conceptualisation. Science can only
ascertain what is, but not what should be, and outside of its domain value
judgements of all kinds remain necessary."
"I maintain that cosmic religiousness is the strongest and most noble driving
force of scientific research."
"Why does this applied science, which saves work and makes life easier, bring us
so little happiness? The simple answer runs: Because we have not yet learned to
make sensible use of it."
"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far
greater."
"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."
Science, Philosophy and Religion: a Symposium (1941) ch. 13
"The process of scientific discovery is, in effect, a continual flight from
wonder."
"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. "
"The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking."
"If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?"
"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"
"When the number of factors coming into play in a phenomenological complex is too
large scientific method in most cases fails. One need only think of the weather,
in which case the prediction even for a few days ahead is impossible. Neverthess,
noone doub ts that we are confronted with a causal connection whose causal
components are in the main known to us. Occurrences in this domain are beyond the
reach of exact perdiction because of the variety of factors in operation, not
because of any lack of order in nature."
"Scientific research is based on the idea that everything that takes place is
determined by laws of nature, and therefore this holds for the action of people.
For this reason, a research scientist will hardly be inclined to believe that
events could be i nfluenced by a prayer, i.e. by a wish addressed to a
Supernatural Being."
[Albert Einstein, 1936, responding to a child who wrote and asked if scientists
pray. Source: "Albert Einstein: The Human Side", Edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh
Hoffmann]
"In the temple of science are many mansions, and various indeed are they that
dwell therein and the motives that have led them hither. Many take to science out
of a joyful sense of superior intellectual power; science is their own special
sport to which t hey look for vivid experience and the satisfaction of ambition;
many others are to be found in the temple who have offered the products of their
brains on this altar for purely utilitarian purposes. Were an angel of the Lord to
come and drive all the peop le belonging to these two categories out of the
temple, the assemblage would be seriously depleted, but there would still be some
men, of both present and past times, left inside"
"I think that a particle must have a separate reality independent of the
measurements. That is an electron has spin, location and so forth even when it is
not being measured. I like to think that the moon is there even if I am not
looking at it."
"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."
"Relativity teaches us the connection between the different descriptions of one
and the same reality".
"I sometimes ask myself how it came about that I was the one to develop the theory
of relativity. The reason, I think, is that a normal adult never stops to think
about problems of space and time. These are things which he has thought about as a
child. Bu t my intellectual development was retarded,as a result of which I began
to wonder about space and time only when I had already grown up."
"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."
"When a blind beetle crawls over the surface of the globe, he doesn't realize that
the track he has covered is curved. I was lucky enough to have spotted it."
"I have no particular talent. I am merely inquisitive."
"It's not that I'm so smart , it's just that I stay with problems longer ."
"If I had my life to live over again, I'd be a plumber."
"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. ... I get
most joy in life out of music."
"What Life Means to Einstein: An Interview by George Sylvester Viereck," for the
October 26, 1929 issue of The Saturday Evening Post.
"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."
"What Life Means to Einstein: An Interview by George Sylvester Viereck," for the
October 26, 1929 issue of The Saturday Evening Post.
"I want to know God's thoughts,..... the rest are details.."
"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."
"As far as I'm concerned, I prefer silent vice to ostentatious virtue."
This is a story I heard as a freshman at the University of Utah when Dr. Henry
Eyring was still teaching chemistry there. Many years before he and Dr. Einstein
were colleagues. As they walked together they noted an unusual plant growing along
a garden walk. Dr. Eyring asked Dr. Einstein if he knew what the plant was.
Einstein did not, and together they consulted a gardener. The gardener indicated
the plant was green beans and forever afterwards Eyring said Einstein didn't know
beans
"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."
"True religion is real living; living with all one's soul, with all one's goodness
and righteousness."
"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."
"I cannot believe that God would choose to play dice with the universe." or
sometimes quoted as "God does not play dice with the universe."
"When the solution is simple, God is answering."
"I want to know God's thoughts,..... the rest are details.."
"I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation,
whose purposes are modeled after our own -- a God, in short, who is but a
reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives
the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or
ridiculous egotisms."
[Albert Einstein, obituary in New York Times, 19 April 1955]
"The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. The religion which based on
experience, which refuses dogmatic. If there's any religion that would cope the
scientific needs it will be Buddhism...."
"I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will
of the kind that we experience in ourselves. Neither can I nor would I want to
conceive of an individual that survives his physical death; let feeble souls, from
fear or ab surd egoism, cherish such thoughts. 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 manifests itself in nature."
[Albert Einstein,_The World as I See It_]
"We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course,
powerful muscles, but no personality."
"The highest principles for our aspirations and judgements are given to us in the
Jewish-Christian religious tradition. It is a very high goal which, with our weak
powers, we can reach only very inadequately, but which gives a sure foundation to
our aspir ations and valuations. If one were to take that goal out of out of its
religious form and look merely at its purely human side, one might state it
perhaps thus: free and responsible development of the individual, so that he may
place his powers freely and gladly in the service of all mankind. ... it is only
to the individual that a soul is given. And the high destiny of the individual is
to serve rather than to rule, or to impose himself in any otherway."
"Intelligence makes clear to us the interrelationship of means and ends. But mere
thinking cannot give us a sense of the ultimate and fundamental ends. To make
clear these fundamental ends and valuations and to set them fast in the emotional
life of the i ndividual, seems to me precisely the most important function which
religion has to form in the social life of man."
"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."
"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."
[Albert Einstein, "Religion and Science", New York Times Magazine, 9 November
1930]
"The mystical trend of our time, which shows itself particularly in the rampant
growth of the so-called Theosophy and Spiritualism, is for me no more than a
symptom of weakness and confusion. Since our inner experiences consist of
reproductions, and comb inations of sensory impressions, the concept of a soul
without a body seem to me to be empty and devoid of meaning."
"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."
[Albert Einstein, 1954, from "Albert Einstein: The Human Side", edited by Helen
Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Princeton University Press]
"I am convinced that some political and social activities and practices of the
Catholic organizations are detrimental and even dangerous for the community as a
whole, here and everywhere. I mention here only the fight against birth control at
a time when overpopulation in various countries has become a serious threat to the
health of people and a grave obstacle to any attempt to organize peace on this
planet."
[ letter, 1954]
"Scientific research is based on the idea that everything that takes place is
determined by laws of nature, and therefore this holds for the action of people.
For this reason, a research scientist will hardly be inclined to believe that
events could be influenced by a prayer, i.e. by a wish addressed to a Supernatural
Being."
[Albert Einstein, 1936, responding to a child who wrote and asked if scientists
pray. Source: "Albert Einstein: The Human Side", Edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh
Hoffmann]
"I cannot conceive of a personal God who would directly influence the actions of
individuals, or would directly sit in judgment on creatures of his own creation. I
cannot do this in spite of the fact that mechanistic causality has, to a certain
extent, b een placed in doubt by modern science. [He was speaking of Quantum
Mechanics and the breaking down of determinism.] My religiosity consists in a
humble admiratation of the infinitely superior spirit that reveals itself in the
little that we, with our we ak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of
reality. Morality is of the highest importance -- but for us, not for God."
[Albert Einstein, from "Albert Einstein: The Human Side", edited by Helen Dukas
and Banesh Hoffman, Princeton University Press]
"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 finest emotion of which we are capable is the mystic emotion. Herein lies the
germ of all art and all true science. Anyone to whom this feeling is alien, who is
no longer capable of wonderment and lives in a state of fear is a dead man. To
know that what is impenatrable for us really exists and manifests itself as the
highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, whose gross forms alone are
intelligible to our poor faculties - this knowledge, this feeling ... that is the
core of the true religious sent iment. In this sense, and in this sense alone, I
rank myself amoung profoundly religious men."
"The more a man is imbued with the ordered regularity of all events the firmer
becomes his conviction that there is no room left by the side of this ordered
regularity for causes of a different nature. For him neither the rule of human nor
the rule of div ine will exist as an independent cause of natural events. To be
sure, the doctrine of a personal God interfering with the natural events could
never be refuted, in the real sense, by science, for this doctrine can always take
refuge in those domains in wh ich scientific knowledge has not yet been able to
set foot. But I am persuaded that such behaviour on the part of the
representatives of religion would not only be unworthy but also fatal. For a
doctrine which is able to maintain itself not in clear light but only in the dark,
will of necessity lose its effect on mankind, with incalculable harm to human
progress .... If it is one of the goals of religions to liberate maknind as far as
possible from the bondage of egocentric cravings, desires, and fears, s cientific
reasoning can aid religion in another sense. Although it is true that it is the
goal of science to discover (the) rules which permit the association and
foretelling of facts, this is not its only aim. It also seeks to reduce the
connections disc overed to the smallest possible number of mutually independent
conceptual elements. It is in this striving after the rational unification of the
manifold that it encounters its greatest successes, even though it is precisely
this attempt which causes it t o run the greatest risk of falling a prey to
illusion. But whoever has undergone the intense experience of successful advances
made in this domain, is moved by the profound reverence for the rationality made
manifest in existence. By way of the understand ing he achieves a far reaching
emancipation from the shackles of personal hopes and desires, and thereby attains
that humble attitude of mind toward the grandeur of reason, incarnate in
existence, and which, in its profoundest depths, is inaccessible to m an. This
attitude, however, appears to me to be religious in the highest sense of the word.
And so it seems to me that science not only purifies the religious imulse of the
dross of its anthropomorphism but also contibutes to a religious spiritualisation
of our understanding of life."
[Albert Einstein, "Science, Philosophy, and Religion, A Symposium", published by
the Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion in Their Relation to the
Democratic Way of Life, Inc., New York, 1941]
"Whoever undertakes to set himself up as judge in the field of truth and knowledge
is shipwrecked by the laughter of the Gods."
"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."
"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
"The only source of knowledge is experience"
"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant.
We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift."
"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."
"What Life Means to Einstein: An Interview by George Sylvester Viereck," for the
October 26, 1929 issue of The Saturday Evening Post.
"We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course,
powerful muscles, but no personality."
"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 t o comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy
curiosity."
"Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative
pursuits. Any man who read too much and uses his own brain too little falls into
lazy habits of thinking."
"Intelligence makes clear to us the interrelationship of means and ends. But mere
thinking cannot give us a sense of the ultimate and fundamental ends. To make
clear these fundamental ends and valuations and to set them fast in the emotional
life of the i ndividual, seems to me precisely the most important function which
religion has to form in the social life of man."
"During the last century, and part of the one before, it was widely held that
there was an unreconcilable conflict between knowledge and belief. The opinion
prevailed amoung advanced minds that it was time that belief should be replaced
increasingly by kn owledge; belief that did not itself rest on knowledge was
superstition, and as such had to be opposed. According to this conception, the
sole function of education was to open the way to thinking and knowing, and the
school, as the outstanding organ for t he people's education, must serve that end
exclusively."
Quoting Newton
"We all know, from what we experience with and within ourselves, that our
conscious acts spring from our desires and our fears. Intuition tells us that that
is true also of our fellows and of the higher animals. We all try to escape pain
and death, w hile we seek what is pleasant. We are all ruled in what we do by
impulses; and these impulses are so organised that our actions in general serve
for our self preservation and that of the race. Hunger, love, pain, fear are some
of those inner forces which rule the individual's instinct for self preservation.
At the same time, as social beings, we are moved in the relations with our fellow
beings by such feelings as sympathy, pride, hate, need for power, pity, and so on.
All these primary impulses, not easi ly described in words, are the springs of
man's actions. All such action would cease if those powerful elemental forces were
to cease stirring within us. Though our conduct seems so very different from that
of the higher animals, the primary instincts are much aloke in them and in us. The
most evident difference springs from the important part which is played in man by
a relatively strong power of imagination and by the capacity to think, aided as it
is by language and other symbolical devices. Thought is the organising factor in
man, intersected between the causal primary instincts and the resulting actions.
In that way imagination and intelligence enter into our existence in the part of
servants of the primary instincts. But their intervention makes our acts to serve
ever less merely the immediate claims of our instincts."
"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 justifed merely by reason, one can only answer: they exist in a healthy
society as p owerful traditions, which act upon the conduct and aspirations and
judgements of the individuals; they are there, that is, as something living,
without its being necessary to find justification for their existence. They come
into being not through demonst ration but through revelation, through the medium
of powerful personalities. One must not attempt to justify them, but rather to
sense their nature simply and clearly."
"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."
"The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted
to remain children all our lives."
"A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be
happy."
"The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there's no risk of
accident for someone who's dead."
"The ideals which have always shone before me and filled me with the joy of living
are goodness, beauty, and truth. 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."
"Without deep reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other
people ."
"A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based
on the labors of others ."
"Only a life lived for others is a life worth while ."
"Two things inspire me to awe -- the starry heavens above and the moral universe
within ."
"It is a magnificent feeling to recognize the unity of complex phenomena which
appear to be things quite apart from the direct visible truth."
"Watch the stars, and from them learn. To the Master's honor all must turn, each
in its track, without a sound, forever tracing Newton's ground."
-- translation by Dave Fredrick
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure
about the former."
"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of
all true art and 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."
Quoted on pg. 289 of Adventures of a Mathematician, by S. M. Ulam(Charles
Scribner's Sons, New York, 1976). Apparently these words also occur somewhere in
What I Believe (1930).
"The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible."
"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 natu re in its beauty."
"The human mind is not capable of grasping the Universe. We are like a little
child entering a huge library. The walls are covered to the ceilings with books in
many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written these
books. It doe s not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which
they are written. But the child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the
books---a mysterious order which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects."
"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 t o comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy
curiosity."
"What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very
imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of "humility."
This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism"
"The finest emotion of which we are capable is the mystic emotion. Herein lies the
germ of all art and all true science. Anyone to whom this feeling is alien, who is
no longer capable of wonderment and lives in a state of fear is a dead man. To
know that what is impenatrable for us really exists and manifests itself as the
highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, whose gross forms alone are
intelligible to our poor faculties - this knowledge, this feeling ... that is the
core of the true religious sent iment. In this sense, and in this sense alone, I
rank myself amoung profoundly religious men."
"The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the
sense in which he has attained liberation from the self."
"Understanding of our fellow human beings...becomes fruitful only when it is
sustained by sympathetic feelings in joy and sorrow."
"Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocre minds. The
latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary
prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence."
"Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life
on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet"
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure
about the former."
Einstein was attending a music salon in Germany before the second world war, with
the violinist S. Suzuki. Two Japanese women played a German piece of music and a
woman in the audience exclaimed: "How wonderful! It sounds so German!" Einstein
responde d: "Madam, people are all the same."
"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."
[Albert Einstein, "Religion and Science", New York Times Magazine, 9 November
1930]
"Man tries to make for himself in the fashion that suits him best a simplified and
intelligible picture of the world; he then tries to some extent to substitute this
cosmos of his for the world of experience, and thus to overcome it. This is what
the pai nter, the poet, the speculative philosopher, and the natural scientists
do, each in his own fashion. Each makes this cosmos and its construction the pivot
of his emotional life, in order to find in this way peace and security which he
can not find in the narrow whirlpool of personal experience."
Ideas and Opinions, (Dell, Pinebrook, N.J., 1954).
"It is only to the individual that a soul is given."
"In order to be an immaculate member of a flock of sheep, one must above all be a
sheep oneself."
"The minority, the ruling class at present, has the schools and press, usually the
Church as well, under its thumb. This enables it to organize and sway the emotions
of the masses, and make its tool of them."
[Albert Einstein, letter to Sigmund Freud, 30 July 1932]
"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."
"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."
["Albert Einstein: The Human Side", edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, and
published by Princeton University Press.]
"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 natu re in its beauty. "
"The real problem is in the hearts and minds of men. It is easier to denature
plutonium than to denature the evil spirit of man."
Quoted in: Freeman Dyson, Disturbing the Universe, ch. 5 (1979).
"We all know, from what we experience with and within ourselves, that our
conscious acts spring from our desires and our fears. Intuition tells us that that
is true also of our fellows and of the higher animals. We all try to escape pain
and death, w hile we seek what is pleasant. We are all ruled in what we do by
impulses; and these impulses are so organised that our actions in general serve
for our self preservation and that of the race. Hunger, love, pain, fear are some
of those inner forces which rule the individual's instinct for self preservation.
At the same time, as social beings, we are moved in the relations with our fellow
beings by such feelings as sympathy, pride, hate, need for power, pity, and so on.
All these primary impulses, not easi ly described in words, are the springs of
man's actions. All such action would cease if those powerful elemental forces were
to cease stirring within us. Though our conduct seems so very different from that
of the higher animals, the primary instincts are much aloke in them and in us. The
most evident difference springs from the important part which is played in man by
a relatively strong power of imagination and by the capacity to think, aided as it
is by language and other symbolical devices. Thought is the organising factor in
man, intersected between the causal primary instincts and the resulting actions.
In that way imagination and intelligence enter into our existence in the part of
servants of the primary instincts. But their intervention makes our acts to serve
ever less merely the immediate claims of our instincts."
"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."
When asked how World War III would be fought, Einstein replied that he didn't
know. But he knew how World War IV would be fought: With sticks and stones!
"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 co mmand, senseless brutality, deplorable loce-of-country stance, how
violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be
torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action! It is my conviction that
killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder."
"Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through
understanding."
"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 many intimidate the human race into bringing order into it's
international affair s, which without the pressure of fear, it would not do."
"Nor do I take into account a danger of starting a chain reaction of a scope great
enough to destroy part or all of the planet...But it is not necessary to imagine
the earth being destroyed like a nova by a stellar explosion to understand vividly
the grow ing scope of atomic war and to recognize that unless another war is
prevented it is likely to bring destruction on a scale never before held possible,
and even now hardly conceived, and that little civilization would survive it."
(1947)
"Unless Americans come to realize that they are not stronger in the world because
they have the bomb but weaker because of their vulnerability to atomic attack,
they are not likely to conduct their policy at Lake Success [the United Nations]
or in their r elations with Russia in a spirit that furthers the arrival at an
understanding. " (1947)
"The discovery of nuclear chain reactions need not bring about the destruction of
mankind any more than did the discovery of matches. We only must do everything in
our power to safeguard against its abuse. Only a supranational organization,
equipped wit h a sufficiently strong executive power, can protect us." (1953)
"Never regard study as a duty, but as the 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 work belongs."
"Teaching should be such that what is offered is perceived as a valuable gift and
not as a hard duty ."
"It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and
knowledge ."
"The real difficulty, the difficulty which has baffled the sages of all times, is
rather this: how can we make our teaching so potent in the motional life of man,
that its influence should withstand the pressure of the elemental psychic forces
in the indi vidual?"
"The school has always been the most important means of transferring the wealth of
tradition from one generation to the next. This applies today in an even higher
degree than in former times, for through modern development of economic life, the
family as bearer of tradition and education has become weakened.The continuance
and health of human society is therefore in a still higher degree dependent on
school than formally."
New York Times, October 16, 1936
"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. " Out of My Later Years
"To me the worst thing seems to be a school principally to work with methods of
fear, force and artificial authority. Such treatment destroys the sound
sentiments, the sincerity and the self-confidence of pupils and produces a
subservient subject."
Ideas and Opinions
"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."
"On Education"
"With the affairs of active human beings it is different. Here knowledge of truth
alone does not suffice; on the contrary this knowledge must continually be renewed
by ceaseless effort, if it is not to be lost. It resembles a statue of marble
which stan ds in the desert and is continuously threatened with burial by the
shifting sands. The hands of science must ever be at work in order that the marble
column continue everlastingly to shine in the sun. To those serving hands mine
also belong."
"On Education"
"During the last century, and part of the one before, it was widely held that
there was an unreconcilable conflict between knowledge and belief. The opinion
prevailed amoung advanced minds that it was time that belief should be replaced
increasingly by kn owledge; belief that did not itself rest on knowledge was
superstition, and as such had to be opposed. According to this conception, the
sole function of education was to open the way to thinking and knowing, and the
school, as the outstanding organ for t he people's education, must serve that end
exclusively."
"One should guard against inculcating a young man {or woman} with the idea that
success is the aim of life, for a successful man normally receives from his peers
an incomparibly greater portion than than the services he has been able to render
them d eserve. The value of a man resides in what he gives and not in what he is
capable of receiving. The most important motive for study at school, at the
university, and in life is the pleasure of working and thereby obtaining results
which will serve the com munity. The most important task for our educators is to
awaken and encourage these psychological forces in a young man {or woman}. Such a
basis alone can lead to the joy of possessing one of the most precious assets in
the world - knowledge or artistic sk ill."
"Gravitation can not be held responsible for people falling in love"
"Things should be made as simple as possible, but not any simpler."
"Joy in looking and comprehending is nature's most beautiful gift."
"Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing."
"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age 18.
"Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them."
"Strange is our Situation Here Upon Earth"
"Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts."
"If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor."
"An empty stomach is not a good political advisor."
"Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new."
"I never think of the future. It comes soon enough."
"Force always attracts men of low morality, and I believe it to be an invariable
rule that tyrants of genius are succeeded by scoundrels."
"If A equals success, then the formula is: A=X+Y+Z. X is work. Y is play. Z is
keep your mouth shut."
"Try not to become a man of success but rather to become a man of value."
"Perfection of means and confusion of ends seem to characterize our age."
"Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted
counts."
"The faster you go, the shorter you are."
"Nationalism is an infantile sickness. It is the measles of the human race."
"The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once."
"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."
"The wireless 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. "
"The foundation of morality should not be made dependent on myth nor tied to any
authority lest doubt about the myth or about the legitimacy of the authority
imperil the foundation of sound judgment and action."
"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." (1929)
"Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character."
"Perfections of mean and confusion of goals seem -in my opinion- to characterize
our age. "
"Politics is a pendulum whose swings between anarchy and tyranny are fueled by
perpetually rejuvenated illusions."
"All our lauded technological progress -- our very civilization - is like the axe
in the hand of the pathological criminal."
"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."
"Desire for approval and recognition is a healthy motive, but the desire to be
acknowledged as better, stronger or more intelligent than a fellow being or fellow
scholar easily leads to an excessively egoistic psychological adjustment, which
may become in jurious for the individual and for the community. "
"On Education," Address to the State University of New York at Albany, in Ideas
and Opinions
"We have penetrated far less deeply into the regularities obtaining within the
realm of living things, but deeply enough nevertheless to sense at least the rule
of fixed necessity ..... what is still lacking here is a grasp of the connections
of profound generality, but not a knowledge of order itself.
"(1) Those instrumental goods which should serve to maintain the life and health
of all human beings should be produced by the least possible labour of all.
(2) The satisfaction of physical needs is indeed the indespensible precondition of
a satisfactory existence, but in itself is not enough. In order to be content men
must also have the possibility of developing their intellectual and artistic
powers to whatever extent accord with their personal characteristics and
abilities."
"If the possibility of the spiritual development of all individuals is to be
secured, a second kind of outward freedom is necessary. The development of science
and of the creative activities of the spirit in general requires still another
kind of freedom, which may be characterised as inward freedom. It is this freedom
of the spirit which consists in the interdependence of thought from the
restrictions of authoritarian and social prejudices as well as from
unphilosophical routinizing and habit in general. This inward freedom is an
infrequent gift of nature and a worthy object for the individual."