Background Image

...

It Seems To Me That The Idea Of A Personal God Is An Anthropological Concept Which I Cannot Take Seriously. I Also Cannot Imagine Some Will Or Goal Outside The Human Sphere... Science Has Been Charged With Undermining Morality, But The Charge Is Unjust. 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

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

It Seems To Me

Albert Einstein

...

It Seems To Me That The Idea Of A Personal God Is An Anthropological Concept Which I Cannot Take Seriously. I Also Cannot Imagine Some Will Or Goal Outside The Human Sphere... Science Has Been Charged With Undermining Morality, But The Charge Is Unjust. 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.

Views: 9

Topic

More From Albert Einstein

I Am Not A Genius, I Am Just Curious. I Ask Many Questions. And When The Answer Is Simple, Then God Is Answering.

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.

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.

Freedom Of Teaching And Of Opinion In Book Or Press Is The Foundation For The Sound And Natural Development Of Any People.

I Believe In Mystery And, Frankly, I Sometimes Face This Mystery With Great Fear. In Other Words, I Think That There Are Many Things In The Universe That We Cannot Perceive Or Penetrate, And That Also We Experience Some Of The Most Beautiful Things In Life Only In A Very Primitive Form. Only In Relation To These Mysteries Do I Consider Myself To Be A Religious Man.

The World Is In Greater Peril From Those Who Tolerate Or Encourage Evil Than From Those Who Actually Commit It.

We Cannot Despair About Mankind Knowing That Mozart Was A Man.

I Have Never Looked Upon Ease And Happiness As Ends In Themselves. This Ethical Basis I Call The Ideal Of The Pigsty.

My Comprehension Of God Comes From A Deeply Felt Conviction Of A Superior Intelligence That Reveals Itself In The Knowable World.

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.

You Are The Only Person I Know Who Has The Same Attitude Towards Physics As I Have: Belief In The Comprehension Of Reality Through Something Basically Simple And Unified... It Seems Hard To Sneak A Look At God's Cards. But That He Plays Dice And Uses 'telepathic' Methods... Is Something That I Cannot Believe For A Single Moment.

Look Deep Into Nature, And Then You Will Understand Everything Better.

Force Always Attracts Men Of Low Morality, And I Believe It To Be An Invariable Rule That Tyrants Of Genius Are Succeeded By Scoundrels.

There Is One Ray Of Hope. It Seems To Me That Today The Responsible Leaders Of The Several Peoples Have, In The Main, The Honest Will To Abolish War.

The Only Thing More Dangerous Than Ignorance Is Arrogance

"there's Been A Quantum Leap Technologically In Our Age, But Unless There's Another Quantum Leap In Human Relations, Unless We Learn To Live In A New Way Towards One Another, There Will Be A Catastrophe."

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 Mathematician Knows Some Things, No Doubt, But Not Those Things One Usually Wants To Get From Him.

If We Trace Out What We Behold And Experience Through The Language Of Logic, We Are Doing Science; If We Show It In Forms Whose Interrelashionships Are Not Accessible To Our Conscious Thought But We Are Intuitively Recognized As Meaningful, We Are Doing Art.

Science Can Only State What Is, Not What Should Be.

The Creative Principle [of Science] Resides In Mathematics.

If Someone Feels That He Has Never Made A Mistake In His Life, It Only Means That He Has Never Tried Anything New In His Life.

Failure Is Only Postponed Success As Long As Courage 'coaches' Ambition.

The Bible Is A Collection Of Honorable, But Primitive Legends Which Are Still Nevertheless Pretty Childish.

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

Whatever Your Problems In Math Are, I Assure Mine Are Greater.

Wisdom Is Not A Product Of Schooling But Of The Lifelong Attempt To Acquire It.

Most Mistakes In Philosophy And Logic Occur Because The Human Mind Is Apt To Take The Symbol For The Reality.

A Table, A Chair, A Bowl Of Fruit And A Violin; What Else Does A Man Need To Be Happy.

It Is Harder To Crack Prejudice Than An Atom.

Is It Not A Terrible Thing To Be Forced By Society To Do Things Which All Of Us As Individuals Regard As Abominable Crimes?

Relativity Teaches Us The Connection Between The Different Descriptions Of One And The Same Reality.

The Fact That Man Produces A Concept "i" Besides The Totality Of His Mental And Emotional Experiences Or Perceptions Does Not Prove That There Must Be Any Specific Existence Behind Such A Concept. We Are Succumbing To Illusions Produced By Our Self-created Language, Without Reaching A Better Understanding Of Anything. Most Of So-called Philosophy Is Due To This Kind Of Fallacy.

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.

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

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

I Would Not Think That Philosophy And Reason Themselves Will Be Man's Guide In The Foreseeable Future; However, They Will Remain The Most Beautiful Sanctuary They Have Always Been For The Select Few.

Relativity Applies To Physics, Not Ethics.

Ethics And Morals

If You Do The Same Thing Over And Over Again You Cannot Ever Expect A Different Outcome.

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.

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

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

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

The Future Is Not A Gift-it Is An Achievement.

He Who Finds A Thought That Lets Us A Little Deeper Into The Eternal Mystery Of Nature Has Been Granted Great Peace.

... It Is A Welcome Symptom In An Age Which Is Commonly Denounced As Materialistic, That It Makes Heroes Of Men Whose Goals Lie Wholly In The Intellectual And Moral Sphere.

I Don't Try To Imagine A Personal God; It Suffices To Stand In Awe At The Structure Of The World, Insofar As It Allows Our Inadequate Senses To Appreciate It.

The True Definition Of Madness Is Repeating The Same Action, Over And Over, Hoping For A Different Result.

Curiosity Has Its Own Reason For Existence.

There Does, In Fact, Appear To Be A Plan.

A Human Being Is A Part Of The Whole Called By Us Universe; A Part Limited In Time And Space. He Experiences Himself, His Thoughts, And His Feelings As Something Separate From The Rest - A Kind Of Optical Delusion Of Consciousness.

It Has Become Appallingly Obvious That Our Technology Has Exceeded Our Humanity.

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

The Most Beautiful Thing We Can Experience Is The Mysterious. It Is The Source Of All True Art And Science.

Assumptions Are Made And Most Assumptions Are Wrong.

In The Middle Of Every Difficulty Lies Opportunity.

The Height Of Stupidity Is Most Clearly Demonstrated By The Individual Who Ridicules Something He Knows Nothing About.

If You Are Out To Describe The Truth, Leave Elegance To The Tailor. On Being Reproached That His Formula Of Gravitation Was Longer And More Cumbersome Than Newton's.

To One Bent On Age, Death Will Come As A Release. I Feel This Quite Strongly Now That I Have Grown Old Myself And Have Come To Regard Death Like An Old Debt, At Long Last To Be Discharged.

When I Think Of The Most Able Students I Have Encountered In My Teaching - I Mean Those Who Have Distinguished Themselves Not Only By Skill But By Independence Of Thought - Then I Must Confess That All Have Had A Lively Interest In Epistemology.

Life Is Sacred, That Is To Say, It Is The Supreme Value, To Which All Other Values Are Subordinate.

[there Is] A Duty In Refusing To Cooperate In Any Undertaking That Violates The Constitutional Rights Of The Individual. This Holds In Particular For All Inquisitions That Are Concerned With The Private Life And The Political Affiliations Of The Citizens.

The Most Important Human Endeavor Is The Striving For Morality In Our Actions.

America Is A Large Country And Its People Have So Far Not Shown Much Interest In Great International Problems, Among Which The Problem Of Disarmament Occupies First Place Today. 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.

One Feels The Insignificance Of The Individual, And It Makes One Happy.

The Power Of Imagination Is The Ultimate Creative Power.. No Doubt About That. While Knowledge Defines All We Currently Know And Understand.. Imagination Points To All We Might Yet Discover And Create. Imagination Is More Important Than Knowledge. Your Imagination Is Your Preview Of Life's Coming Attractions

I Agree With Your Remark About Loving Your Enemy As Far As Actions Are Concerned. But For Me The Cognitive Basis Is The Trust In An Unrestricted Causality. 'i Cannot Hate Him, Because He Must Do What He Does.' That Means For Me More Spinoza Than The Prophets.

I No Longer Believed In The Known God Of The Bible, But Rather In The Mysterious God Expressed In Nature.

Scarcely Anyone Who Comprehends This Theory Can Escape Its Magic.

Hell! There Ain't No Rules Around Here! We Are Tryin' To Accomplish Somep'n!

A Woman Is Always Right. But Sometimes Confused Or May Be Misinformed Or Rude Or Stubborn Or Senseless Or Unchangeable About Her Opinions Or Even Down Right Stupid At Times But Never Wrong... She Is Always Right.

Persistence Is The Most Powerful Force On Earth, It Can Move Mountains.

We Can Understand Almost Anything, But We Can't Understand How We Understand.

Information Is Not Knowledge.

Thought Provoking

If A Theory Can Not Be Explained To A Child, Then The Theory Is Probably Worthless.

The Laws Of Gravity Cannot Be Held Responcible For People Falling In Love.

Falling In Love

I Want To Gods Thoughts, The Rest Are Details.

I Know That It Is A Hopeless Undertaking To Debate About Fundamental Value Judgements. For Instance, If Someone Approves, As A Goal, The Extirpation Of The Human Race From The Earth, One Cannot Refute Such A Viewpoint On Rational Grounds. But If There Is Agreement On Certain Goals And Values, One Can Argue Rationally About The Means By Which These Objectives May Be Obtained.

The Consequence Was A Positively Fanatic [orgy Of] Freethinking Coupled With The Impression That Youth Is Being Deceived By The State Through Lies; It Was A Crushing Impression

I Speak To Everyone In The Same Way, Whether He Is The Garbage Man Or The President Of The University.

Education Is Only A Ladder To Gather Fruit From The Tree Of Knowledge, Not The Fruit Itself

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.

War Seems To Me To Be A Mean, Contemptible Thing: I Would Rather Be Hacked In Pieces Than Take Part In Such An Abominable Business. And Yet So High, In Spite Of Everything, Is My Opinion Of The Human Race That I Believe This Bogey Would Have Disappeared Long Ago, Had The Sound Sense Of The Nations Not Been Systematically Corrupted By Commercial And Political Interests Acting Through The Schools And The Press

The History Of Scientific And Technical Discovery Teaches Us That The Human Race Is Poor In Independent And Creative Imagination. Even When The External And Scientific Requirements For The Birth Of An Idea Have Long Been There, It Generally Needs An External Stimulus To Make It Actually Happen; Man Has, So To Speak, To Stumble Right Up Against The Thing Before The Idea Comes.

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.

There's No Question Dolphins Are Smarter Than Humans As They Play More.

The Mind That Opens To A New Idea Never Returns To Its Original Size

So I Am Living Without Fats, Without Meat, Without Fish, But Am Feeling Quite Well This Way. It Always Seems To Me That Man Was Not Born To Be A Carnivore.

It Is Certainly True That Principles Cannot Be More Securely Founded Than On Experience And Consciously Clear Thinking.

The Essentials Of Being A Person Of My Type Lies Precisely In What They Think And How They Think, Not In What They Do. Your Thoughts Shape You.

Just As With The Man In The Fairy Tale Who Turned Whatever He Touched Into Gold, With Me Everything Is Turned Into Newspaper Clamor.

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.

If I Had Known They Were Going To Do This, I Would Have Become A Shoemaker.

I Believe That Gandhi’s Views Were The Most Enlightened Of All The Political Men In Our Time. We Should Strive To Do Things In His Spirit: Not To Use Violence In Fighting For Our Cause, But By Non-participation In Anything You Believe Is Evil.

Bureaucracy Is The Death Of All Sound Work.

Government Bureaucracy

Imagination Without Knowledge May Create Beautiful Things, Knowledge Without Imagination Can Create Only Perfect Ones.

The Trite Objects Of Human Efforts-possessions, Superficial Success, Luxury-have Always Seemed Contemptible To Me.

From The Standpoint Of Daily Life, However, There Is One Thing We Do Know: That We Are Here For The Sake Of Each Other.

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.

The Economists Will Have To Revise Their Theories Of Value.

I Admit That Thoughts Influence The Body.

The Universe Is Difficult To Comprehend Because It Is Obvious.

The Supreme Task Of The Physicist Is To Arrive At Those Universal Elementary Laws From Which The Cosmos Can Be Built Up By Pure Deduction. There Is No Logical Path To These Laws; Only Intuition, Resting On Sympathetic Understanding Of Experience, Can Reach Them.

I Have Not Eaten Enough Of The Tree Of Knowledge, Though In My Profession I Am Obligated To Feed On It Regularly.

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

I Wouldn't Want To Live If I Did Not Have My Work. In Any Case, It's Good That I'm Already Old And Personally Don't Have To Count On A Prolonged Future.

Creativity Is One Of Those Hypnotic Words Which Are Prone To Cast A Spell Upon Our Understanding And Dissolve Our Thinking Into Haze.

All Meaningful And Lasting Change Starts First In Your Imagination And Then Works Its Way Out. Imagination Is More Important Than Knowledge.

The Sole Function Of Education...[is] To Open The Way To Thinking And Knowing, And The School, As The Outstanding Organ For The People's Education, Must Serve That End Exclusively.

For Me The Jewish Religion Like All Others Is An Incarnation Of The Most Childish Superstitions, And The Jewish People To Whom I Gladly Belong And With Whose Mentality I Have A Deep Affinity Have No Different Quality For Me Than All Other People. As Far As My Experience Goes, They Are No Better Than Other Human Groups, Although They Are Protected From The Worst Cancers By A Lack Of Power. Otherwise I Cannot See Anything Chosen About Them.

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

The Most Beautiful Gift Of Nature Is That It Gives One Pleasure To Look Around And Try To Comprehend What We See.

If I Had Foreseen Hiroshima And Nagasaki, I Would Have Torn Up My Formula In 1905.

Hiroshima And Nagasaki

Highly Developed Spirits Often Encounter Resistance From Mediocre Minds.

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

More And More I Come To Value Charity And Love Of One's Fellow Being Above Everything Else...all Our Lauded Technological Progress-our Very Civilization-is Like The Axe In The Hand Of The Pathological Criminal.

I Do Know That Kind Fate Allowed Me To Find A Couple Of Nice Ideas After Many Years Of Feverish Labor.

A Successful Man Is He Who Receives A Great Deal From His Fellow Men, Usually Incomparably More Than Corresponds To His Service To Them. The Value Of A Man, However, Should Be Seen In What He Gives And Not In What He Is Able To Receive.

Science Is The Process Of Making Obviously Erroneous Ideas Less Obviously Erroneous.

But Their Intervention Makes Our Acts To Serve Ever Less Merely The Immediate Claims Of Our Instincts.

Fortunate Newton, Happy Childhood Of Science. Nature To Him Was An Open Book. He Stands Before Us Strong, Certain, And Alone.

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 That Civilization Will Be Wiped Out In A War Fought With The Atomic Bomb. Perhaps Two-thirds Of The People Of The Earth Will Be Killed.

Nuclear Power Is One Hell Of A Way To Boil Water

The Time Comes In Life When We Have Read Enough. It's Time To Stop Reading. It's Time To Lay Down The Books And Write.

I Have Made No Secret, Either Privately Or Publicly, Of Any Sense Of Outrage Over Officially Enforced Military And War Service. I Regard It As A Duty Of Conscience To Fight Against Such Barbarous Enslavement Of The Individual With Every Means Available.

What Is The Meaning Of Human Life, Or, For That Matter, Of The Life Of Any Creature? To Know The Answer To This Question Means To Be Religious. You Ask: Does It Make Any Sense, Then, To Pose This Question? I Answer: The Man Who Regards His Fellow Creatures As Meaningless Is Not Merely Unhappy But Hardly Fit For Life.

Whoever Is Careless With The Truth In Small Matters Cannot Be Trusted In Important Affairs.

Relations Between Pure And Applied Mathematicians Are Based On Trust And Understanding. Namely, Pure Mathematicians Do Not Trust Applied Mathematicians, And Applied Mathematicians Do Not Understand Pure Mathematicians.

Overemphasis Of The Competitive System And Premature Specialization On The Ground Of Immediate Usefulness Kill The Spirit On Which All Cultural Life Depends, Specialized Knowledge Included.

I Have Never Belonged Wholeheartedly To A Country, A State, Nor To A Circle Of Friends, Nor Even To My Own Family. When I Was Still A Rather Precocious Young Man, I Already Realized Most Vividly The Futility Of The Hopes And Aspirations That Most Men Pursue Throughout Their Lives. Well-being And Happiness Never Appeared To Me As An Absolute Aim. I Am Even Inclined To Compare Such Moral Aims To The Ambitions Of A Pig.

We Have To Do The Best We Are Capable Of. This Is Our Sacred Human Responsibility.

Do Not Grow Old, No Matter How Long You Live.

The Problems That Exist In This World Can Not Be Solved By The Level Of Thinking That Created Them.

One Should Respect An Honest Person Even If He Expresses Opinions Differing From One's Own.

I Am Also Convinced That One Gains The Purest Joy From Spirited Things Only When They Are Not Tied In With Earning One's Livelihood.

Nonsense, Seems To Sum Up Everything.

How Many People Are Trapped In Their Everyday Habits: Part Numb, Part Frightened, Part Indifferent? To Have A Better Life We Must Keep Choosing How We Are Living.

Matter Is Spirit Reduced To Point Of Visibility.

I Have No Particular Talent. I Am Merely Inquisitive.

Qualities I Sought In A Scientific Theory Were Naturalness, Inner Perfection And Logical Simplicity From An Aesthetic Approach.

You Can Never Solve A Problem On The Level On Which It Was Created.

We Are Part Of The Whole Which We Call The Universe, But It Is An Optical Delusion Of Our Mind That We Think We Are Separate. This Separateness Is Like A Prison For Us. Our Job Is To Widen The Circle Of Our Compassion So We Feel Connected With All People And Situations.

I Like Neither New Clothes Nor New Kinds Of Food.

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

Common Sense Is That Layer Of Prejudices Which We Acquire Before We Are Sixteen.

The State Is Made For Mankind, Not Mankind For The State

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, Gaining New And Wider Views, Discovering Unexpected Connections Between Our Starting Points And Its Rich Environment. But The Point From Which We Started Out Still Exists And Can Be Seen, Although It Appears Smaller And Forms A Tiny Part Of Our Broad View Gained By The Mastery Of The Obstacles On Our Adventurous Way Up.

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 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.

Realising The Healthy International Relations Can Be Created Only Among Populations Made Up Of Individuals Who Themselves Are Healthy And Enjoy A Measure A Independence, The United Nations Elaborated A Universal Declaration Of Human Rights, Which Was Adopted By The U.n. General Assembly On December 10, 1948.

The Only Race I Know Is The Human One.

I Believe In Intuition And Inspiration...at Times I Feel Certain I Am Right While Not Knowing The Reason.

As I Look Back Over The Truly Crucial Events In My Life I Realize That They Were Not Planned Long In Advance. Albert Einstein Said, 'there Are Only Two Ways To Live Your Life. One Is As Though Nothing Is A Miracle. The Other Is As Though Everything Is.'

We Are Boxed In By The Boundary Conditions Of Our Thinking

Everyday Is An Oportunity To Make A New Happy Ending.

Genius Abhors Consensus Because When Consensus Is Reached, Thinking Stops. Stop Nodding Your Head.

I Regard Class Differences As Contrary To Justice And, In The Last Resort, Based On Force.

As A Human Being, One Has Been Endowed With Just Enough Intelligence To Be Able To See Clearly How Utterly Inadequate That Intelligence Is When Confronted With What Exists.

If I Had 20 Days To Solve A Problem, I Would Take 19 Days To Define It

I Know That The Most Joy In My Life Has Come To Me From My Violin.

The Individual Must Not Merely Wait And Criticize, He Must Defend The Cause The Best He Can. The Fate Of The World Will Be Such As The World Deserves.

Do Not Grow Old, No Matter How Long You Live. Never Cease To Stand Like Curious Children Before The Great Mystery Into Which We Were Born.

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.

For Science Can Only Ascertain What Is, But Not What Should Be, And Outside Of Its Domain Value Judgments Of All Kinds Remain Necessary. Religion, On The Other Hand, Deals Only With Evaluations Of Human Thought And Action: It Cannot Justifiably Speak Of Facts And Relationships Between Facts.

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.

A Thought That Sometimes Makes Me Hazy: Am I - Or Are The Others Crazy?

I Know Quite Certainly That I Myself Have No Special Talent; Curiosity, Obsession And Dogged Endurance, Combined With Self-criticism, Have Brought Me To My Ideas.

When Forced To Summarize The General Theory Of Relativity In One Sentence: Time And Space And Gravitation Have No Separate Existence From Matter.

Example Isn't Another Way To Teach, It Is The Only Way To Teach.

Innovation Is Not The Product Of Logical Thought, Even Though The Final Product Is Tied To A Logical Structure.

Imagination Is More Powerful Than Knowledge Because Knowledhe Is Limited But Imagination Is Without Boundaries

One Can Only Continue To Expect To Be Read If One Omits Everything That Is Unimportant.

Our Entire Much-praised Technological Progress, And Civilization Generally, Could Be Compared To An Axe In The Hand Of A Pathological Criminal.

Many Of The Things You Can Count, Don't Count. Many Of The Things You Can't Count, Really Count.

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.

Everything Has Changed Except The Way Man Thinks (when The Hydrogen Bomb Was Exploded)

... The Desire For Truth Must Take Precedence Over All Other Desires.

I Am Not Only A Pacifist But A Militant Pacifist. I Am Willing To Fight For Peace. Nothing Will End War Unless The People Themselves Refuse To Go To War.

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.

Man Is, At One And The Same Time, A Solitary Being And A Social Being. As A Solitary Being, He Attempts To Protect His Own Existence And That Of Those Who Are Closest To Him, To Satisfy His Personal Desires, And To Develop His Innate Abilities. As A Social Being, He Seeks To Gain The Recognition And Affection Of His Fellow Human Beings, To Share In Their Pleasures, To Comfort Them In Their Sorrows, And To Improve Their Conditions Of Life.

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. (reading This Makes Me Wonder How Much Sooner Man Could Have Walked On The Moon... Had We Listened To A Child's Fantasies. It Is Truly A Pity That So Many Lose Their Gift Of Imagination To The Steady Hum Of The Status Quo.)

One Thing I Have Learned In A Long Life: That All Our Science, Measured Against Reality, Is Primitive And Childlike -- And Yet It Is The Most Precious Thing We Have.

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.

A Mathematical Equation Stands Forever.

Mathematical Equations

Weakness Of Attitude Becomes Weakness Of Character; It Becomes Lack Of Power To Act With Courage Proportionate To Danger. All This Must Lead To The Destruction Of Our Intellectual Life Unless The Danger Summons Up Strong Personalities Able To Fill The Lukewarm And Discouraged With New Strength And Resolution.

Man Would Indeeded Be In A Poor Way If He Had To Be Restrained By Fear Of Punishment And Hope Of Reward After Death.

A Hundred Times Every Day I Remind Myself That My Inner And Outer Life Are Based On The Labors Of Others.

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

A Country Cannot Simultaneously Prepare And Prevent War. I Know Not With What Weapons World War Iii Will Be Fought, But World War Iv Will Be Fought With Sticks And Stones. The Distinctions Separating The Social Classes Are False; In The Last Analysis They Rest On Force.

The Most Important Human Endeavor Is The Striving For Morality In Our Actions. Our Inner Balance And Even Our Very Existence Depend On It. Only Morality In Our Actions Can Give Beauty And Dignity To Life.

The Chicken Did Not Cross The Road. The Road Passed Beneath The Chicken.

You Can't Solve Your Problems By Using The Same Thinking That Got You Into Those Problems In The First Place.

All Conditions And All Circumstances In Our Lives Are A Result Of A Certain Level Of Thinking. If We Want To Change The Conditions And Circumstances, We Have To Change The Level Of Thinking That Is Responsible For It.

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.

It's Very Depressing To Live In A Time Where It's Easier To Break An Atom Than A Prejudice.

In Order To Be An Immaculate Member Of A Flock Of Sheep, One Must Above All Be A Sheep Oneself.

My Only Genius Talent Is Inquisitiveness.

Peace Cannot Be Kept By Force; It Can Only Be Achieved By Understanding.

Man Has An Intense Desire For Assured Knowledge.

Trending Author

Category