Background Image

...

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.

-Albert Einstein

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

The Point Is To

Albert Einstein

...

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.

Views: 40103

Topic

More From Albert Einstein

If You've Never Failed, You've Never Tried Anything New.

Short Inspirational Life

I Refuse To Engage In An Intellectual Battle With An Unarmed Man.

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.

I See My Life In Terms Of Music.

The Importance Of A Problem Should Not Be Judged By The Number Of Pages Devoted To It.

Strange Is Our Situation Here Upon Earth.

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.

There Is No Scientific Antidote, Only Education. You've Got To Change The Way People Think. I Am Not Interested In Disarmament Talks Between Nations . . . What I Want To Do Is To Disarm The Mind. After That, Everything Else Will Automatically Follow. The Ultimate Weapon For Such Mental Disarmament Is International Education.

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

The More One Chases The Quanta, The Better They Hide Themselves.

But If The Longing For The Achievement Of The Goal Is Powerfully Alive Within Us, Then Shall We Not Lack The Strength To Find The Means For Reaching The Goal And For Translating It Into Deeds.

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 Suffice.

If You Can't Explain Something Simply, You Don't Know Enough About It.

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.

About God, I Cannot Accept Any Concept Based On The Authority Of The Church... As Long As I Can Remember. I Have Resented Mass Indoctrination. I Cannot Prove To You There Is No Personal God, But If I Were To Speak Of Him, I Would Be A Liar. I Do Not Believe In The God Of Theology Who Rewards Good And Punishes Evil. His Universe Is Not Ruled By Wishful Thinking, But By Immutable Laws

Once Again You Are Wrong Sir, Darkness Does Not Exist Either. Darkness Is In Reality The Absence Of Light. Light We Can Study, But Not Darkness. In Fact We Can Use Newton's Prism To Break White Light Into Many Colors And Study The Various Wavelengths Of Each Color. You Cannot Measure Darkness. A Simple Ray Of Light Can Break Into A World Of Darkness And Illuminate It. How Can You Know How Dark A Certain Space Is? You Measure The Amount Of Light Present. Isn't This Correct? Darkness Is A Term Used By Man To Describe What Happens When There Is No Light Present.

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

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

If Tomorrow Were Never To Come, It Would Not Be Worth Living Today.

If The Moon, In The Act Of Completing Its Eternal Way Around The Earth, Were Gifted With Self-consciousness, It Would Feel Thoroughly Convinced That It Was Traveling Its Way Of Its Own Accord On The Strength Of A Resolution Taken Once And For All. So Would A Being, Endowed With Higher Insight And More Perfect Intelligence, Watching Man And His Doings, Smile About Man's Illusion That He Was Acting According To His Own Free Will.

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.

Einstein Didn't Speak Until He Was Four, Leading Most Of His Teachers To Believe He Was Crazy. That Is Until He Whipped Out The Theory Of Relativity. Bayum! Showed You Guys.

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.

Knowledge Is Realizing That The Street Is One Way; Wisdom Is Looking In Both Directions Anyway.

Those Who Have The Privilege To Know Have The Duty To Act.

For Any One Who Is Pervaded With The Sense Of Causal Law In All That Happens, Who Accepts In Real Earnest The Assumption Of Causality, The Idea Of A Being Who Interferes With The Sequence Of Events In The World Is Absolutely Impossible. Neither The Religion Of Fear Nor The Social-moral Religion Can Have Any Hold On Him.

Life Is A Preparation For The Future; And The Best Preparation For The Future Is To Live As If There Were None.

After A Certain High Level Of Technical Skill Is Achieved Science And Art Tend To Coalesce In Aesthetics, Plasticity, And Form. The Greatest Scientists Are Artists As Well.

I Have Always Eaten Animal Flesh With A Somewhat Guilty Conscience.

Who Would Have Thought Around 1900 That In Fifty Years Time We Would Know So Much More And Understand So Much Less.

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.

What The Individual Can Do Is To Give A Fine Example, And To Have The Courage To Uphold Ethical Values .. In A Society Of Cynics.

Words Of Wisdom

[freud's] Sense Of Reality Is Less Clouded By Wishful Thinking Than Is The Case With Other People And [he Combines] The Qualities Of Critical Judgment, Earnestness And Responsibility.

What Is Significant In One's Own Existence One Is Hardly Aware, And It Certainly Should Not Bother The Other Fellow. What Does A Fish Know About The Water In Which He Swims All His Life?

No Worthy Problem Is Ever Solved Within The Plane Of Its Original Conception.

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

For The Moral Attitudes Of A People That Is Supported By Religion Need Always Aim At Preserving And Promoting The Sanity And Vitality Of The Community And Its Individuals, Since Otherwise This Community Is Bound To Perish. A People That Were To Honour Falsehood, Defamation, Fraud, And Murder Would Be Unable, Indeed, To Subsist For Very Long.

We Are Here For The Sake Of Others

Compassionate People Are Geniuses In The Art Of Living, More Necessary To The Dignity, Security, And Joy Of Humanity Than The Discoverers Of Knowledge.

There Is No Salvation For Civilization, Or Even The Human Race, Other Than The Creation Of A World Government.

World Government

Not Until We Dare To Regard Ourselves As A Nation, Not Until We Respect Ourselves, Can We Gain The Esteem Of Others, Or Rather Only Then Will It Come Of Its Own Accord

I Believe, Indeed, That Overemphasis On The Purely Intellectual Attitude, Often Directed Solely To The Practical And Factual, In Our Education, Has Led Directly To The Impairment Of Ethical Values. I Am Not Thinking So Much Of The Dangers With Which Technical Progress Has Directly Confronted Mankind, As Of The Stifling Of Mutual Human Considerations By A 'matter-of-fact' Habit Of Thought Which Has Come To Lie Like A Killing Frost Upon Human Relations. Without 'ethical Culture' There Is No Salvation For Humanity.

While It Is True That Science, To The Extent Of Its Grasp Of Causative Connections, May Reach Important Conclusions As To The Compatibility And Incompatibility Of Goals And Evaluations, The Independent And Fundamental Definitions Regarding Goals And Values Remain Beyond Science's Reach.

The Difference Between Stupidity And Genius Is That Genius Has Its Limits.

There Is Nothing Divine About Morality; It Is A Purely Human Affair. If People Are Good Only Because They Fear Punishment, And Hope For Reward, Then We Are A Sorry Lot Indeed. What The Individual Can Do Is To Give A Fine Example, And To Have The Courage To Uphold Ethical Values .. In A Society Of Cynics.

In The Temple Of Science Are Many Mansions, And Various Indeed Are They That Dwell Therein And The Motives That Have Led Them Thither. Many Take To Science Out Of A Joyful Sense Of Superior Intellectual Power; Science Is Their Own Special Sport To Which They 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.

Between The Difficulties, One Hides The Opportunity

Perfection Of Means And Confusion Of Goals Seem To Characterize Our Age. If We Desire Sincerely And Passionately The Safety, The Welfare And The Free Development Of The Talents Of All Men, We Shall Not Be In Want Of The Means To Approach Such A State.

Betterment Of Conditions The World Over Is Not Essentially Dependent On Scientific Knowledge But On The Fulfillment Of Human Traditions And Ideals.

There Comes A Point In Your Life When You Need To Stop Reading Other People's Books And Write Your Own.

What I Value In Life Is Quality Rather Then Quantity.

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.

The Universe Is Stranger Than We Imagine!

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

Regarding Sex Education: No Secrets!

If The Workers Of This World, Men And Women, Decide Not To Manufacture And Transport Ammunition, It Would End War For All Time. We Must Do That. Dedicate Our Lives To Drying Up The Source Of War; Ammunition Factories.

The Word 'god' Is For Me Nothing More Than The Expression And Product Of Human Weaknesses, And Religious Scripture A Collection Of Honourable, But Still Primitive Legends Which Are Nevertheless Pretty Childish. No Interpretation, No Matter How Subtle, Can (for Me) Change This.

I Live My Daydreams In Music I See My Life In Terms Of Music. I Get Most Joy In Life Out Of Music.

I Consider It Important, Indeed Urgently Necessary, For Intellectual Workers To Get Together, Both To Protect Their Own Economic Status And, Also, Generally Speaking, To Secure Their Influence In The Political Field.

Without "ethical Culture", There Is No Salvation For Humanity.

The Development Of General Ability For Independent Thinking And Judgment Should Always Be Placed Foremost, Not The Acquisition Of Special Knowledge.

I Very Rarely Think In Words At All. A Thought Comes, And I May Try To Express In Words Afterwards.

The World We Have Created Is A Product Of Our Thinking; It Cannot Be Changed Without Changing Our Thinking. If We Want To Change The World We Have To Change Our Thinking...no Problem Can Be Solved From The Same Consciousness That Created It. We Must Learn To See The World Anew.

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 Is Harder To Crack Prejudice Than An Atom.

I Do Not Believe That A Man Should Be Restrained In His Daily Actions By Being Afraid Of Punishment After Death Or That He Should Do Things Only Because In This Way He Will Be Rewarded After He Dies. This Does Not Make Sense. The Proper Guidance During The Life Of A Man Should Be The Weight That He Puts Upon Ethics And The Amount Of Consideration That He Has For Others.

Dostoevsky Gives Me More Than Any Scientist, More Than Gauss.

The Measure Of Intelligence Is The Ability To Change.

The Greatest Scientists Are Artists As Well.

The True Measure Of A Man Is The Degree To Which He Has Managed To Subjugate His Ego.

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

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].

Coincidences Are God's Way Of Staying Anonymous.

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.

Condemnation Without Investigation Is The Height Of Ignorance

That Which Is Impenetrable To Us Really Exists. Behind The Secrets Of Nature Remains Something Subtle, Intangible, And Inexplicable. Veneration For This Force Beyond Anything That We Can Comprehend Is My Religion.

The Enormous Mental Resilience, Without Which No Chess Player Can Exist, Was So Much Taken Up By Chess That He Could Never Free His Mind Of This Game

Nationalism Is An Infantile Disease. It Is The Measles Of Mankind.

Try Not To Become A Man Of Success, But A Man Of Value. Look Around At How People Want To Get More Out Of Life Than They Put In. A Man Of Value Will Give More Than He Receives. Be Creative, But Make Sure That What You Create Is Not A Curse For Mankind.

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

But Without Deeper Reflection One Knows From Daily Life That One Exists For Other People--first Of All For Those Upon Whose Smiles And Well-being Our Own Happiness Is Wholly Dependent, And Then For The Many, Unknown To Us, To Whose Destinies We Are Bound By The Ties Of Sympathy.

Force Always Attracts Men Of Low Morality.

I Never Failed In Mathematics. Before I Was Fifteen I Had Mastered Differential And Integral Calculus.

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.

If [quantum Theory] Is Correct, It Signifies The End Of Physics As A Science.

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 Command, Senseless Brutality, Deplorable Love-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.

Creative Energy Is More Critical Than Learning.

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

Although Words Exist For The Most Part For The Transmission Of Ideas, There Are Some Which Produce Such Violent Disturbance In Our Feelings That The Role They Play In The Transmission Of Ideas Is Lost In The Background.

Time And Space Are Modes By Which We Think And Not Conditions In Which We Live.

The Relativity Principle In Connection With The Basic Maxwellian Equations Demands That The Mass Should Be A Direct Measure Of The Energy Contained In A Body; Light Transfers Mass. With Radium There Should Be A Noticeable Diminution Of Mass. The Idea Is Amusing And Enticing; But Whether The Almighty Is Laughing At It And Is Leading Me Up The Garden Path -- That I Cannot Know.

Engineering Is Not Only Study Of 45 Subjects But It Is Moral Studies Of Intellectual Life. Make Things As Simple As Possible..but Not Simpler.

Marvellous, What Ideas The Young People Have These Days. But I Don't Believe A Word Of It.

A Country Cannot Simultaneously Prepare And Prevent War.

Creativity Is Seeing What Others See And Thinking What No One Else Has Ever Thought.

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

There Is, However, One Other Human Right Which Is Infrequently Mentioned But Which Seems To Be Destined To Become Very Important: This Is The Right, Or The Duty, Of The Individual To Abstain From Cooperating In Activities Which He Considers Wrong Or Pernicious.

If People Would Only Talk About What They Understood, Earth Would Be A Very Quiet Place.

Information Is Not Knowledge.

Thought Provoking

It Would Of Course Be A Great Step Forward If We Succeeded In Combining The Gravitational Field And The Electromagnetic Field Into A Single Structure. Only So Could The Era In Theoretical Physics Inaugurated By Faraday And James Clerk Maxwell Be Brought To A Satisfactory Close.

Theoretical Physics

The Most Important Decision We Make Is Whether We Believe We Live In A Friendly Or Hostile Universe.

The Idea Of A Personal God Is Quite Alien To Me And Seems Even Naïve.

The Important Things Are Always Simple.

The Most Important Method Of Education Always Has Consisted Of That In Which The Pupil Was Urged To Actual Performance.

Don't Let Your Brain Interfere With Your Heart.

As To Science, We May Well Define It For Our Purpose As "methodical Thinking Directed Toward Finding Regulative Connections Between Our Sensual Experiences".

I Have Repeatedly Said That In My Opinion The Idea Of A Personal God Is A Childlike One.

Quantum Mechanics Is Certainly Imposing. But An Inner Voice Tells Me That This Is Not Yet The Real Thing. The Theory Says A Lot, But Does Not Bring Us Any Closer To The Secrets Of The "old One." I, At Any Rate, Am Convinced That He Is Not Playing At Dice.

My God May Not Be Your Idea Of God, But One Thing I Know Of My God He Makes Me A Humanitarian. I Am A Proud Jew Because We Gave The World The Bible And The Story Of Joseph.

Out Of Complexity, Find Simplicity!

I Was Originally Supposed To Become An Engineer But The Thought Of Having To Expend My Creative Energy On Things That Make Practical Everyday Life Even More Refined, With A Loathsome Capital Gain As The Goal, Was Unbearable To Me.

Memory Is Deceptive Because It Is Colored By Today's Events.

It Is An Outcome Of Faith That Nature-as She Is Perceptible To Our Five Senses-takes The Character Of Such A Well Formulated Puzzle.

One Cannot Learn So Well As By Experiencing It Oneself.

The Scientific Theorist Is Not To Be Envied. For Nature, Or More Precisely Experiment, Is An Exorable And Not Very Friendly Judge Of His Work. It Never Says "yes" To A Theory. In The Most Favorable Cases It Says "maybe," And In The Great Majority Of Cases Simply "no." If An Experiment Agrees With A Theory It Means For The Latter "maybe," And If It Does Not Agree It Means "no." Probably Every Theory Will Some Day Experience Its "no" - Most Theories, Soon After Conception.

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

Men Marry Women With The Hope They Will Never Change. Women Marry Men With The Hope They Will Change. Invariably They Are Both Disappointed.

The Man Who Regards His Own Life And That Of His Fellow-creatures As Meaningless Is Not Merely Unfortunate But Almost Disqualified For Life.

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!

A Life Directed Chiefly Toward The Fulfillment Of Personal Desires Will Sooner Or Later Always Lead To Bitter Disappointment.

I Don't Need To Know Everything, I Just Need To Know Where To Find It, When I Need It

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.

I Admit That Thoughts Influence The Body.

The World Will Not Be Destroyed By Those Who Do Evil, But By Those Who Watch Them Without Doing Anything.

The Fanatical Atheists Are Like Slaves Who Are Still Feeling The Weight Of Their Chains Which They Have Thrown Off After Hard Struggle. They Are Creatures Who—in Their Grudge Against Traditional Religion As The "opium Of The Masses"—cannot Hear The Music Of The Spheres.

Without Deep Reflection One Knows From Daily Life That One Exists For Other People.

Applying The Axioms Of Physical Science To Human Life Has Something Reprehensible To It.

Physical Science

I Didn't Arrive At My Understanding Of The Fundamental Laws Of The Universe Through My Rational Mind.

When Men Are Engaged In War And Conquest, The Tools Of Science Become As Dangerous As A Razor In The Hands Of A Child Of Three. We Must Not Condemn Man Because His Inventiveness And Patient Conquest Of The Forces Of Nature Are Being Exploited For False And Destructive Purposes. Rather, We Should Remember That The Fate Of Mankind Hinges Entirely Upon Man’s Moral Development.

It Seems To Me An Utterly Futile Task To Prescribe Rules And Limitations For The Conduct Of War. War Is Not A Game; Hence One Cannot Wage War By Rules As One Would In Playing Games. Our Fight Must Be Against War Itself. The Masses Of People Can Most Effectively Fight The Institution Of War By Establishing An Organization For The Absolute Refusal Of Military Service.

To Sense That Behind Anything That Can Be Experienced There Is A Something That Our Mind Cannot Grasp And Whose Beauty And Sublimity Reaches Us Only Indirectly And As A Feeble Reflection, This Is Religiousness. In This Sense I Am Religious.

Hunger, Love, Pain, Fear Are Some Of Those Inner Forces Which Rule The Individual's Instinct For Self Preservation.

I Am Fascinated By Spinoza's Pantheism, But Admire Even More His Contributions To Modern Thought Because He Is The First Philosopher To Deal With The Soul And The Body As One, Not Two Separate Things

A Clever Person Solves A Problem. A Wise Person Avoids It.

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.

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

Joy In Looking And Comprehending Is Nature's Most Beautiful Gift.

Einstein Was Once Asked How Many Feet Are In A Mile. Einstein's Reply Was "i Don't Know, Why Should I Fill My Brain With Facts I Can Find In Two Minutes In Any Standard Reference Book?

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

Teaching Should Be Such That What Is Offered Is Perceived As A Valuable Gift And Not As A Hard Duty.

There Are Yet People Who Say There Is No God. But What Really Makes Me Angry Is That They Quote Me For The Support Of Such Views

If You Took Half Of Something And Continued To Take Half Of That Half And So On, You Would Never Reach An End.

Everything Has Changed, Except Our Way Of Thinking.

Nonviolent Communication

If You Want To Make Your Children Brilliant, Tell Them Fairy Tales. If You Want To Make Them More Brilliant, Tell Them More Fairy Tales.

If I Give You A Pfennig, You Will Be One Pfennig Richer And I'll Be One Pfennig Poorer. But If I Give You An Idea, You Will Have A New Idea, But I Shall Still Have It Too.

I Want To Know What God Thinks. The Rest Are Details.

Empathy Is Patiently And Sincerely Seeing The World Through The Other Person's Eyes. It Is Not Learned In School; It Is Cultivated Over A Lifetime.

I Do Not Believe In Free Will. Schopenhauer's Words: 'man Can Do What He Wants, But He Cannot Will What He Wills,' Accompany Me In All Situations Throughout My Life And Reconcile Me With The Actions Of Others, Even If They Are Rather Painful To Me. This Awareness Of The Lack Of Free Will Keeps Me From Taking Myself And My Fellow Men Too Seriously As Acting And Deciding Individuals, And From Losing My Temper.

In A Sailboat I Become Oblivious To Everything Else In The World.

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

The Scientist's Religious Feeling Takes The Form Of A Rapturous Amazement At The Harmony Of Natural Law, Which Reveals An Intelligence Of Such Superiority That, Compared With It, All The Systematic Thinking And Acting Of Human Beings Is Utterly Insignificant Reflection. This Feeling Is The Guiding Principle Of His Life And Work, In So Far As He Succeeds In Keeping Himself From The Shackles Of Selfish Desire. It Is Beyond Question Closely Akin To That Which Has Possessed The Religious Geniuses Of All Ages.

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

[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.

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

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 To Comprehend A Little Of This Mystery Every Day. Never Lose A Holy Curiosity.

Nature Conceals Her Secrets Because She Is Sublime, Not Because She Is A Trickster.

By Academic Freedom I Understand The Right To Search For Truth And To Publish And Teach What One Holds To Be True. This Right Also Implies A Duty: One Must Not Conceal Any Part Of What One Has Recognized To Be True.

We Must Recognize What In Our Accepted Tradition Is Damaging To Our Fate And Dignity-and Shape Our Lives Accordingly.

I Should Much Rather See A Reasonable Agreement With Arabs Based Upon Living Together Than The Creation Of A Jewish State.

In Music I Do Not Look For Logic. I Am Quite Intuitive On The Whole And Know No Theories. I Never Like A Work If I Cannot Intuitively Grasp Its Inner Unity (architecture).

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 Normal Objective Of My Thought Affords No Insight Into The Dark Places Of Human Will And Feeling.

There Have Already Been Published By The Bucketsful Such Brazen Lies And Utter Fictions About Me That I Would Long Since Have Gone To My Grave If I Had Allowed Myself To Pay Attention To Them.

It Is Quite Possible That We Can Do Greater Things Than Jesus, For What Is Written In The Bible About Him Is Poetically Embellished.

A Bartender Is Just A Pharmacist With A Limited Inventory.

Imagination Rules The Earth

You Must Be Aware That Most Men (and Also Not Only A Few Women) Are By Nature Not Monogamous. This Nature Makes Itself Even More Forceful When Tradition And Circumstance Stand In An Individual's Way.

Reading, After A Certain Age, Diverts The Mind Too Much From Its Creative Pursuits. Any Man Who Reads Too Much And Uses His Own Brain Too Little Falls Into Lazy Habits Of Thinking.

In The Shadow Of The Atomic Bomb It Has Become Even More Apparent That All Men Are, Indeed, Brothers.

You Can Move Through Life Seeing Nothing As A Miracle, Or Seeing Everything As A Miracle.

I Myself Should Also Be Dead Already, But I Am Still Here.

Marriage Is But Slavery Made To Appear Civilized.

Without Changing Our Pattern Of Thought, We Will Not Be Able To Solve The Problems We Created With Our Current Patterns Of Thought

If My Theory Of Relativity Is Proven Successful, Germany Will Claim Me As A German And France Will Declare Me A Citizen Of The World. Should My Theory Prove Untrue, France Will Say That I Am A German, And Germany Will Declare That I Am A Jew.

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?

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.

How Can He Possibly Be Humble? He Hasn't Done Anything Yet.

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.

Play Is The Highest From Of Research.

The Truth Isn't Always A Blinding Light. Sometimes It's A Deep And Dazzling Darkness, That Illuminates - And Burns - Just As Surely.

It Is The Theory Which Decides What We Can Observe

We Should Be On Our Guard Not To Overestimate Science And Scientific Methods When It Is A Question Of Human Problems, And We Should Not Assume That Experts Are The Only Ones Who Have The Right To Express Themselves On Questions Affecting The Organization Of Society.

Scientific Method

A Little Knowledge Is A Dangerous Thing. So Is A Lot.

It Would Be Foolish To Despise Tradition. But With Our Growing Self-consciousness And Increasing Intelligence We Must Begin To Control Tradition And Assume A Critical Attitude Toward It, If Human Relations Are Ever To Change For The Better.

If There Is Any Religion That Could Respond To The Needs Of Modern Science, It Would Be Buddhism.

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. To Make This A Living Force And Bring It To Clear Consciousness Is Perhaps The Foremost Task Of Education. 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.

One Has A Feeling That One Has A Kind Of Home In This Timeless Community Of Human Beings That Strive For Truth. ... I Have Always Believed That Jesus Meant By The Kingdom Of God The Small Group Scattered All Through Time Of Intellectually And Ethically Valuable People.

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.

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.

As Soon As Science Has Emerged From Its Initial Stages, Theoretical Advances Are No Longer Achieved Merely By A Process Of Arrangement. Guided By Empirical Data, The Investigator Rather Develops A System Of Thought Which, In General, Is Built Up Logically From A Small Number Of Fundamental Assumptions, The So-called Axioms. We Call Such A System Of Thought A Theory. The Theory Finds The Justification For Its Existence In The Fact That It Correlates A Large Number Of Single Observations, And It Is Just Here That The 'truth' Of The Theory Lies.

That Little Word 'we' I Mistrust And Here's Why: No Man Of Another Can Say, 'he Is I.' Behind All Agreement Lies Something Amiss All Seeming Accord Cloaks A Lurking Abyss.

Everybody Should Be Ashamed Who Uses The Wonders Of Science And Engineering Without Thinking And Having Mentally Realized Not More Of It Than A Cow Realizes Of The Botany Of The Plants Which It Eats With Pleasure.

For An Idea That Does Not First Seem Insane, There Is No Hope.

... 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 Should Much Rather See Reasonable Agreement With The Arabs On The Basis Of Living Together In Peace Than The Creation Of A Jewish State. My Awareness Of The Essential Nature Of Judaism Resists The Idea Of A Jewish State With Borders, An Army, And A Measure Of Temporal Power, No Matter How Modest. I Am Afraid Of The Inner Damage Judaism Will Sustain—especially From The Development Of A Narrow Nationalism Within Our Own Ranks, Against Which We Have Already Had To Fight Strongly, Even Without A Jewish State.

I Was Sitting In A Chair In The Patent Office At Bern When All Of A Sudden A Thought Occurred To Me: "if A Person Falls Freely He Will Not Feel His Own Weight." I Was Startled. This Simple Thought Made A Deep Impression On Me. It Impelled Me Toward A Theory Of Gravitation.

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.

Congratulations

There Is No Vaccine Against Stupidity.

The More I Learn, The More I Realize I Don't Know.

Ever Since Childhood I Have Scorned The Commonplace Limits So Often Set Upon Human Ambition. Possessions, Outward Success, Publicity, Luxury - To Me These Have Always Been Contemptible. I Believe That A Simple And Unassuming Manner Of Life Is Best For Everyone; Best Both For The Body And The Mind

Trending Author

Margaret Chase Smith

Paul Feyerabend

Linford Christie

Christina Perri

Category