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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 Absurd 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

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I Cannot Conceive Of

Albert Einstein

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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 Absurd 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.

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It Is My View That The Vegetarian Manner Of Living, By Its Purely Physical Effect On The Human Temperament, Would Most Beneficially Influence The Lot Of Mankind.

I Am Enough Of An Artist To Draw Freely Upon My Imagination.

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.

In Matters Of Trust And Justice There Can Be No Distinction Between Big Problems And Small, For The General Principles Which Determine The Conduct Of Men Are Indivisible. Whoever Is Careless With The Truth In Small Matters Cannot Be Trusted In Important Affairs.

The Only Way To Escape The Personal Corruption Of Praise Is To Go On Working. One Is Tempted To Stop And Listen To It. The Only Thing Is To Turn Away And Go On Working. Work. There Is Nothing Else.

Gravitation Cannot Be Held Responsible For People Falling In Love. How On Earth Can You Explain In Terms Of Chemistry And Physics So Important A Biological Phenomenon As First Love? Put Your Hand On A Stove For A Minute And It Seems Like An Hour. Sit With That Special Girl For An Hour And It Seems Like A Minute. That's Relativity.

I Hate Crowds And Making Speeches. I Hate Facing Cameras And Having To Answer To A Crossfire Of Questions. Why Popular Fancy Should Seize Upon Me, A Scientist, Dealing In Abstract Things And Happy If Left Alone, Is A Manifestation Of Mass Psychology That Is Beyond Me.

Older Men Start Wars, But Younger Men Fight Them.

There's A Genius In All Of Us.

One Cannot Deal With A Problem With The Same Thinking That Creates It.

If They Want To See Me, Here I Am. If They Want To See My Clothes, Open My Closet And Show Them My Suits.

I Am A Stronger Follower Of Veganism By Principle, Not Just Because Of Moral And Aesthetic Reasons. I Truly Believe In A Vegetarian Lifestyle And I Have Faith And Hopes In Change In Human Destiny, Thanks To The Physical Effects And Benefits Of A Healthier Diet And Its Influence On The Character Of The People. It Will Bring About Some Benefit And Improvement To Human Society.

I Have Deep Faith That The Principle Of The Universe Will Be Beautiful And Simple

I Believe That Whatever We Do Or Live For Has Its Causality; It Is Good, However, That We Cannot See Through To It.

There Are Two Ways To Live: You Can Live As If Nothing Is A Miracle; You Can Live As If Everything Is A Miracle.

The Pioneers Of A Warless World Are The Young Men (and Women) Who Refuse Military Service.

Since The Mathematicians Have Invaded The Theory Of Relativity I Do Not Understand It Myself Any More.

When I Have One Week To Solve A Seemingly Impossible Problem, I Spend Six Days Defining The Problem. Then, The Solution Becomes Obvious.

I Cannot Write In English, Because Of The Treacherous Spelling. When I Am Reading, I Only Hear It And Am Unable To Remember What The Written Word Looks Like.

...behind All The Discernible Laws And Connections, There Remains Something Subtle, Intangible And Inexplicable.

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. Without The Sense Of Kinship With Men Of Like Mind, Without The Occupation With The Objective World, The Eternally Unattainable In The Field Of Art And Scientific Endeavors, Life Would Have Seemed To The Empty. The Trite Objects Of Human Efforts — Possessions, Outward Success, Luxury—have Always Seemed To Me Contemptible.

If You Want To Know The Future, Look At The Past.

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 Health Of Society Thus Depends Quite As Much On The Independence Of The Individuals Composing It As On Their Close Political Cohesion.

You Might As Well Not Be Alive If You're Not In Awe Of God.

It Followed From The Special Theory Of Relativity That Mass And Energy Are Both But Different Manifestations Of The Same Thing - A Somewhat Unfamiliar Conception For The Average Mind. Furthermore, The Equation E = Mc², In Which Energy Is Put Equal To Mass, Multiplied By The Square Of The Velocity Of Light, Showed That Very Small Amounts Of Mass May Be Converted Into A Very Large Amount Of Energy And Vice Versa.

Politics Is More Difficult Than Physics.

Man's Will, Sustained By An Indominable Conviction, Is Much More Powerful Than Material Forces That Seem Insurmountable.

The Difference Between What The Most And The Least Learned People Know Is Inexpressibly Trivial In Relation To That Which Is Unknown.

Manager Solves Problems, Leader Prevents Them.

I Want To Know The Thoughts Of God. Everything Else Is Just Details.

You Accept The Historical Jesus?

The Whole Of Science Is Nothing More Than A Refinement Of Everyday Thinking.

[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 Real Problem Is In The Hearts And Minds Of Men. It Is Not A Problem Of Physics But Of Ethics. It Is Easier To Denature Plutonium Than To Denature The Evil Spirit Of Man.

Between The Difficulties, One Hides The Opportunity

There Are Actually Two Approaches To Reside Your Daily Life. One Is As If Absolutely Nothing Is Really A Miracle. The Other Is As If Every Little Thing Is A Wonder

As An Elderly Man, I Have Remained Estranged From The Society Here.

Anonymity Is No Excuse For Stupidity.

Nothing Will End War Unless The Peoples Themselves Refuse To Go To War.

If One Studies Too Zealously, One Easily Loses His Pants.

I Urge A Willingness To Reserve A Place In Rational Science For Non-rational Wonder.

Man Can Find Meaning In Life Only Through Devoting Himself To Society.

Meaning Of Life

I Soon Learned To Scent Out That Which Was Able To Lead To Fundamentals And To Turn Aside From Everything Else, From The Multitude Of Things Which Clutter Up The Mind And Divert It From The Essential.

War Cannot Be Humanized. It Can Only Be Abolished.

Why Is It That No One Understands Me And Everybody Likes Me

A Man Has To Work So Hard So That Something Of His Personality Stays Alive. A Tomcat Has It So Easy, He Has Only To Spray And His Presence Is There For Years On Rainy Days.

We Can Invent As Many Theories We Like, And Any One Of Them Can Be Made To Fit The Facts. But That Theory Is Always Preferred Which Makes The Fewest Number Of Assumptions.

Joy And Amazement Of The Beauty And Grandeur Of This World Of Which Man Can Just Form A Faint Notion.

A Mathematical Equation Stands Forever.

Mathematical Equations

[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.

If People Are Good Because They Fear Punishment, And Hope For Reward, Then We Are A Sorry Lot Indeed.

We Cannot Despair Of Humanity, Since We Ourselves Are Human Beings.

Weakness Of Attitude Becomes Weakness Of Character.

Everyday Is An Oportunity To Make A New Happy Ending.

No Amount Of Experimentation Can Ever Prove Me Right; A Single Experiment Can Prove Me Wrong.

It May Be Possible To Fight Intolerance, Stupidity, And Fanaticism Seperately, But When They Come Together There Is No Hope.

Sometimes One Pays Most For The Things One Gets For Nothing.

Common Sense Is The Collection Of Prejudices Acquired By Age Eighteen.

Toreador Pants Make Your Feet Look Big Too

The Harmony Of Natural Law Reveals An Intelligence Of Such Superiority That, Compared With It, All The Systematic Thinking And Acting Of Human Beings Is An Utterly Insignificant Reflection.

Measured Objectively, What A Man Can Wrest From Truth By Passionate Striving Is Utterly Infinitesimal. But The Striving Frees Us From The Bonds Of The Self And Makes Us Comrades Of Those Who Are The Best And The Greatest.

We Must Not Only Learn To Tolerate Our Differences. We Must Welcome Them As The Richness And Diversity Which Can Lead To True Intelligence.

Live Your Life... As Though Everything Is A Miracle.

Often In Evolutionary Processes A Species Must Adapt To New Conditions In Order To Survive. Today The Atomic Bomb Has Altered Profoundly The Nature Of The World As We Know It, And The Human Race Consequently Finds Itself In A New Habitat To Which It Must Adapt Its Thinking.

That A Man Can Take Pleasure In Marching In Formation To The Strains Of A Band Is Enough To Make Me Despise Him. He Has Only Been Given His Big Brain By Mistake; A Backbone Was All He Needed.

Everything That Is Really Great And Inspiring Is Created By The Individual Who Can Labor In Freedom.

Any Power Must Be An Enemy Of Mankind Which Enslaves The Individual By Power And By 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.

What You Can't Imagine, You Can't Discover.

It Is Our American Habit If We Find The Foundations Of Our Educational Structure Unsatisfactory To Add Another Story Or Wing. We Find It Easier To Add A New Study Or Course Or Kind Of School Than To Recognize Existing Conditions So As To Meet The Need. Strangled The Holy Curious Of Inquiry. 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.

Combinatory Play Seems To Be The Essential Feature In Productive Thought.

I Am A Deeply Religious Nonbeliever - This Is A Somewhat New Kind Of Religion.

The Tragedy Of Life Is What Dies In The Hearts And Souls Of People While They Live.

We Experience Ourselves Our Thoughts And Feelings As Something Separate From The Rest. A Kind Of Optical Delusion Of 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.

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.

To A Student: Dear Miss - I Have Read About Sixteen Pages Of Your Manuscript . . . I Suffered Exactly The Same Treatment At The Hands Of My Teachers Who Disliked Me For My Independence And Passed Over Me When They Wanted Assistants. . . . Keep Your Manuscript For Your Sons And Daughters, In Order That They May Derive Consolation From It And Not Give A Damn For What Their Teachers Tell Them Or Think Of Them. . . . There Is Too Much Education Altogether.

I Do Not Believe In The God Of Theology Who Rewards Good And Punishes Evil. My God Created Laws That Take Care Of That. His Universe Is Not Ruled By Wishful Thinking, But By Immutable Laws.

Why Does This Magnificent 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.'

Compound Interest Is The Eighth Wonder Of The World. He Who Understands It, Earns It ... He Who Doesn't ... Pays It.

The Woman Who Follows The Crowd Will Usually Go No Further Than The Crowd. The Woman Who Walks Alone Is Likely To Find Herself In Places No One Has Ever Been Before.

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.

The Definition Of Genius Is Taking The Complex And Making It Simple.

The Devil Has Put A Penalty On All Things We Enjoy In Life. Either We Suffer In Our Health, Or We Suffer In Our Soul, Or We Get Fat.

In Their Struggle For The Ethical Good, Teachers Of Religion Must Have The Stature To Give Up The Doctrine Of A Personal God.

The Most Valuable Thing A Teacher Can Impart To Children Is Not Knowledge And Understanding Per Se But A Longing For Knowledge And Understanding, And An Appreciation For Intellectual Values, Whether They Be Artistic, Scientific, Or Moral. It Is The Supreme Art Of The Teacher To Awaken Joy In Creative Expression And Knowledge. Most Teachers Waste Their Time By Asking Questions That Are Intended To Discover What A Pupil Does Not Know, Whereas The True Art Of Questioning Is To Discover What The Pupil Does Know Or Is Capable Of Knowing.

The Tyranny Of The Ignoramuses Is Insurmountable And Assured For All Time.

Members Of Legislative Bodies Are Selected By Political Parties, Largely Financed Or Otherwise Influenced By Private Capitalists Who, For All Practical Purposes, Separate The Electorate From The Legislature. The Consequence Is That The Representatives Of The People Do Not In Fact Sufficiently Protect The Interests Of The Underprivileged Sections Of The Population.

The Horizon Of Many People Is A Circle With A Radius Of Zero. They Call This Their Point Of View.

Conviction Is A Good Motive, But A Bad Judge.

It Is Just As Important To Make Knowledge Live And Keep It Alive As To Solve Specific Problems.

Dancers Are The Athletes Of God.

I Love To Travel, But Hate To Arrive.

Nothing Truly Valuable Arises From Ambition Or From A Mere Sense Of Duty; It Stems Rather From Love And Devotion Towards Men And Towards Objective Things.

To Have Security Against Atomic Bombs And Against The Other Biological Weapons, We Have To Prevent War, For If We Cannot Prevent War Every Nation Will Use Every Means That Is At Their Disposal; And In Spite Of All Promises They Make, They Will Do It. At The Same Time, So Long As War Is Not Prevented, All The Governments Of The Nations Have To Prepare For War, And If You Have To Prepare For War, Then You Are In A State Where You Cannot Abolish War.

That's My Mathematician Who Examines Problems Which I Put Before Him And Checks Their Validity. You See, I Am Not Myself A Good Mathematician.

The Most Incomprehensible Thing About The World Is That It Is Comprehensible.

The Comprehensibility Of The World Seems To Me A Wonder Or Eternal Secret. Here Lies The Sense Of Wonder Which Increases Even More With The Development Of Our Knowledge.

Physical Concepts Are Free Creations Of The Human Mind, And Are Not, However It May Seem, Uniquely Determined By The External World.

The American Lives Even More For His Goals, For The Future, Than The European. Life For Him Is Always Becoming, Never Being.

Capitalism Has Brought With It Progress, Not Merely In Production But Also In Knowledge.

Information Is Not Knowledge. The Only Source Of Knowledge Is Experience. You Need Experience To Gain Wisdom.

Knowledge Experience

[o]nly If Every Individual Strives For Truth Can Humanity Attain A Happier Future; The Atavisms In Each Of Us That Stand In The Way Of A Friendlier Destiny Can Only Thus Be Rendered Ineffective.

What I Seek To Accomplish Is Simply To Serve With My Feeble Capacity Truth And Justice, At The Risk Of Pleasing No One.

In Science, Moreover, The Work Of The Individual Is So Bound Up With That Of His Scientific Predecessors And Contemporaries That It Appears Almost As An Impersonal Product Of His Generation.

The Magic Of Compounding Interest Is Truly The Eighth Wonder Of The World!

All Men Are Ignorant, Just In Different Fields.

May The Conscience And The Common Sense Of The Peoples Be Awakened, So That We May Reach A New Stage In The Life Of Nations, Where People Will Look Back On War As An Incomprehensible Aberration Of Their Forefathers!

Everyone Should Be Respected As An Individual, But No One Idolized.

One Cannot Help But Be In Awe When [one] Contemplates The Mysteries Of Eternity, Of Life, Of The Marvelous Structure Of Reality.

It Is Little Short Of A Miracle That Modern Methods Of Instruction Have Not Already Completely Strangled The Holy Curiosity Of Inquiry.... I Believe That One Could Even Deprive A Healthy Beast Of Prey Of Its Voraciousness If One Could Force It With A Whip To Eat Continuously Whether It Were Hungry Or Not.

If The Bee Disappeared Off The Face Of The Earth, Man Would Only Have Four Years Left To Live. This Is Regarded As Probably Not A Quote By Einstein.

Time Is What The Clock Says.

Stand Still. The Trees Ahead And Bush Beside You Are Not Lost.

Imagination Rules The Earth

To Be Sure, It Is Not The Fruits Of Scientific Research That Elevate A Man And Enrich His Nature, But The Urge To Understand, The Intellectual Work, Creative Or Receptive.

In Two Weeks The Sheeplike Masses Of Any Country Can Be Worked Up By The Newspapers Into Such A State Of Excited Fury That Men Are Prepared To Put On Uniforms And Kill And Be Killed, For The Sake Of The Sordid Ends Of A Few Interested Parties. Compulsory Military Service Seems To Me The Most Disgraceful Symptom Of That Deficiency In Personal Dignity From Which Civilized Mankind Is Suffering Today.

[asked About A Book In Which 100 Nazi Professors Charged Him With Scientific Error.] Were I Wrong, One Professor Would Have Been Quite Enough.

Thanks To My Fortunate Idea Of Introducing The Relativity Principle Into Physics, You (and Others) Now Enormously Overrate My Scientific Abilities, To The Point Where This Makes Me Quite Uncomfortable.

Physics Is Essentially An Intuitive And Concrete Science. Mathematics Is Only A Means For Expressing The Laws That Govern Phenomena.

I Have Only Two Rules Which I Regard As Principles Of Conduct. The First Is: Have No Rules. The Second Is: Be Independent Of The Opinion Of Others.

A Society's Competitive Advantage Will Come Not From How Well Its Schools Teach The Multiplication And Periodic Tables, But From How Well They Stimulate Imagination And Creativity.

Convictions Can Best Be Supported With Experience And Clear Thinking.

I Cannot Seriously Believe In It [quantum Theory] Because The Theory Cannot Be Reconciled With The Idea That Physics Should Represent A Reality In Time And Space, Free From Spooky Actions At A Distance [spukhafte Fernwirkungen].

... One Does People The Best Service By Giving Them Some Elevating Work To Do And Thus Indirectly Elevating Them.

The Ancients Knew Something, Which We Seem To Have Forgotten.

Economists And Workplace Consultants Regard It As Almost Unquestioned Dogma That People Are Motivated By Rewards, So They Don't Feel The Need To Test This. It Has The Status More Of Religious Truth Than Scientific Hypothesis. The Facts Are Absolutely Clear. There Is No Question That In Virtually All Circumstances In Which People Are Doing Things In Order To Get Rewards, Extrinsic Tangible Rewards Undermine Intrinsic Motivation.the Bonus Myth: How Paying For Results Can Backfire The World Is A Dangerous Place, Not Because Of Those Who Do Evil, But Because Of Those Who Look On And Do Nothing.

Imagination Is Everything. It Is The Preview Of Life's Coming Attractions. Imagination Is More Important Than Knowledge. Never Give Up On What You Really Want To Do. The Person With Big Dreams Is More Powerful Than One With All The Facts.

I Prefer An Attitude Of Humility Corresponding To The Weakness Of Our Intellectual Understanding Of Nature And Of Our Own Being.

If You Can't Explain What You Are Doing To A Nine-year-old, Then Either You Still Don't Understand It Very Well, Or It's Not All That Worthwile In The First Place.

Dr. Einstein: Yes; But This Year The Answers Are Different.

It Is Not A Lack Of Real Affection That Scares Me Away Again And Again From Marriage. Is It A Fear Of The Comfortable Life, Of Nice Furniture, Of Dishonor That I Burden Myself With, Or Even The Fear Of Becoming A Contented Bourgeois.

We Must Learn The Difficult Lesson That The Future Of Mankind Will Only Be Tolerable When Our Course, In World Affairs As In Others, Is Based Upon Justice And Law Rather Than The Threat Of Naked Power.

Any Brief Military Advantage The Usa Might Gain With Nuclear Weapons Would Be Offset By Political And Psychological Losses And Damage To American Prestige. The United States Might Even Touch Off A Worldwide Armaments Race.

The Only Race I Know Is The Human One.

Men Like Henry George [ The Pioneer Of Land Value Taxation] Are Rare, Unfortunately. One Cannot Imagine A More Beautiful Combination Of Intellectual Keenness, Artistic Form, And Fervent Love Of Justice.

This Topic Brings Me To That Worst Outcrop Of Herd Life, The Military System, Which I Abhor... This Plague-spot Of Civilization Ought To Be Abolished With All Possible Speed. Heroism On Command, Senseless Violence, And All The Loathsome Nonsense That Goes By The Name Of Patriotism -- How Passionately I Hate Them!

Watch The Stars, And From Them Learn.

It Is Only To The Individual That A Soul Is Given.

Arrows Of Hate Have Been Aimed At Me Too, But They Have Never Hit Me, Because Somehow They Belonged To Another World With Which I Have No Connection Whatsoever.

It Would Seem That Men Always Need Some Idiotic Fiction In The Name Of Which They Can Hate One Another. Once It Was Religion. Now It Is The State.

Compound Interest On Debt Was The Banker's Greatest Invention, To Capture, And Enslave, A Productive Society.

It Is Really A Puzzle What Drives One To Take One's Work So Devilishly Seriously.

Concern For Man And His Fate Must Always Form The Chief Interest Of All Technical Endeavors. Never Forget This In The Midst Of Your Diagrams And Equations.

Thinking Is Hard Work; That's Why So Few Do It.

What Lead Me More Or Less Directly To The Special Theory Of Relativity Was The Conviction That The Electromotive Force Acting On A Body In Motion In A Magnetic Field Was Nothing Else But An Electric Field.

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.

Try First To Be A Man Of Value; Success Will Follow.

Germany Had The Misfortune Of Becoming Poisoned, First Because Of Plenty, And Then Because Of Want.

Intellectual Growth Should Commence At Birth And Cease Only At Death.

I Don't Teach My Students, I Provide The Circumstances In Which They Can Learn.

We Still Do Not Know One Thousandth Of One Percent Of What Nature Has Revealed To Us.

To See With One's Own Eyes, To Feel And Judge Without Succumbing To The Suggestive Power Of The Fashion Of The Day, To Be Able To Express What One Has Seen And Felt In A Snappy Sentence Or Even In A Cunningly Wrought Word - Is That Not Glorious? Is It Not A Proper Subject For Congregation?

What Is Inconceivable About The Universe Is That It Is At All Conceivable.

One Always Likes To Do The Things For Which One Has Ability.

Understanding Of Our Fellow Human Beings...becomes Fruitful Only When It Is Sustained By Sympathetic Feelings In Joy And Sorrow.

When I Was A Fairly Precocious Young Man I Became Thoroughly Impressed With The Futility Of The Hopes And Strivings That Chase Most Men Restlessly Through Life. Moreover, I Soon Discovered The Cruelty Of That Chase, Which In Those Years Was Much More Carefully Covered Up By Hypocrisy And Glittering Words Than Is The Case Today. By The Mere Existence Of His Stomach Everyone Was Condemned To Participate In That Chase. The Stomach Might Well Be Satisfied By Such Participation, But Not Man Insofar As He Is A Thinking And Feeling Being.

The Idea Of Achieving Security Through National Armament Is, At The Present State Of Military Technique, A Disastrous Illusion.

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 Aspirations And Valuations.

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.

The Single Most Important Decision Any Of Us Will Ever Make Is Whether Or Not To Believe The Universe Is Friendly.

The Man Of Science Is A Poor Philosopher.

Now To The Term 'relativity Theory.' I Admit That It Is Unfortunate, And Has Given Occasion To Philosophical Misunderstandings.

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.

Student: Dr. Einstein, Aren't These The Same Questions As Last Year's [physics] Final Exam? Dr. Einstein: Yes; But This Year The Answers Are Different.

Berlin Is The Place To Which I Am Most Closely Bound By Human And Scientific Ties.

I Think 99 Times And Find Nothing. I Stop Thinking, Swim In The Silence, And The Truth Comes To Me.

I Have Lived To Prove Thoreau's Contention That A Man Is Rich In Proportion To The Number Of Things Which He Can Afford To Let Alone.

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.

I Have Second Thoughts. Maybe God Is Malicious. Told To Valentine Bargmann.

Second Thoughts

I Thought Of That While Riding My Bicycle.

How Can It Be That Mathematics, Being After All A Product Of Human Thought Which Is Independent Of Experience, Is So Admirably Appropriate To The Objects Of Reality?

Considered Logically This Concept Is Not Identical With The Totality Of Sense Impressions Referred To; But It Is An Arbitrary Creation Of The Human (or Animal) Mind.

I Believe That The Horrifying Deterioration In The Ethical Conduct Of People Today Stems From The Mechanization And Dehumanization Of Our Lives. A Disastrous By-product Of The Development Of The Scientific And Technical Mentality. We Are Guilty. Man Grows Cold Faster Than The Planet He Inhabits.

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.

Communities Tend To Be Guided Less Than Individuals By Conscience And A Sense Of Responsibility. How Much Misery Does This Fact Cause Mankind! It Is The Source Of Wars And Every Kind Of Oppression, Which Fill The Earth With Pain, Sighs And Bitterness.

I See In Nature A Magnificent Structure... That Must Fill A Thinking Person With A Feeling Of Humility.

If God Has Created The World, His Primary Worry Was Certainly Not To Make Its Understanding Easy For Us

About Newton: Nature To Him Was An Open Book, Whose Letters He Could Read Without Effort.

On The Other Hand, Although I Have A Regular Work Schedule, I Take Time To Go For Long Walks On The Beach So That I Can Listen To What Is Going On Inside My Head. If My Work Isn't Going Well, I Lie Down In The Middle Of A Workday And Gaze At The Ceiling While I Listen And Visualize What Goes On In My Imagination.

This Is Too Difficult For A Mathematician. It Takes A Philosopher. The Hardest Thing In The World To Understand Is The Income Tax.

I Cannot Conceive Of A God Who Rewards And Punishes His [sic] Creatures, Or Has A Will Of The Type Of Which We Are Conscious Ourselves.

Imagination Is More Important Than Knowledge. Knowledge Is Limited. Imagination Encircles The World.

It Is Impossible To Get Out Of A Problem By Using The Same Kind Of Thinking That It Took To Get Into It.

Creativity Is Intelligence Having Fun.

Falling In Love Is Not At All The Most Stupid Thing That People Do - But Gravitation Cannot Be Held Responsible For It.

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 Symbolically Devices.

The Number Of Natural Hypothesis That Can Explain Any Given Phenomena Is Infinite.

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.

One Must Console Oneself With The Thought That Time Has A Sieve Through Which Most Of These Important Things Run Into The Ocean Of Oblivion And What Remains After This Selection Is Often Still Trite And Bad.

Coincidence Is God's Way Of Remaining Anonymous.

I Do Not Believe In A Personal God And I Have Never Denied This But Have Expressed It Clearly.

The Distinction Between The Past, Present And Future Is Only A Stubbornly Persistent Illusion.

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 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.

Creating A New Theory Is Not Like Destroying An Old Barn And Erecting A Skyscraper In Its Place. It Is Rather Like Climbing A Mountain And Gaining New And Wider Views.

(reply On What Constitutes Scientific Proof:)"the Question Is Much Too Difficult For Me.

All These Primary Impulses, Not Easily Described In Words, Are The Springs Of Man's Actions.

I Know That Philosophically A Murderer Is Not Responsible For His Crime, But I Prefer Not To Take Tea With Him.

Nothing Will Benefit Human Health And Increase The Chances For Survival Of Life On Earth As Much As The Evolution To A Vegetarian Diet.

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The Measure Of Intelligence Is The Ability To Change.

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