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The Prestige Of Government Has Undoubtedly Been Lowered Considerably By The Prohibition Law. For Nothing Is More Destructive Of Respect For The Government And The Law Of The Land Than Passing Laws Which Cannot Be Enforced. It Is An Open Secret That The Dangerous Increase Of Crime In This Country Is Closely Connected With This.

-Albert Einstein

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The Prestige Of Government

Albert Einstein

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The Prestige Of Government Has Undoubtedly Been Lowered Considerably By The Prohibition Law. For Nothing Is More Destructive Of Respect For The Government And The Law Of The Land Than Passing Laws Which Cannot Be Enforced. It Is An Open Secret That The Dangerous Increase Of Crime In This Country Is Closely Connected With This.

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Art Is Standing With One Hand Extended Into The Universe And One Hand Extended Into The World, And Letting Ourselves Be A Conduit For Passing Energy.

Most People Go On Living Their Everyday Life: Half-frightened, Half Indifferent, They Behold The Ghostly Tragic-comedy That Is Being Performed On The International Stage Before The Eyes And Ears Of The World.

The Only Real Valuable Thing Is Intuition.

How Can Cosmic Religious Feeling Be Communicated From One Person To Another, If It Can Give Rise To No Definite Notion Of A God And No Theology? In My View, It Is The Most Important Function Of Art And Science To Awaken This Feeling And Keep It Alive In Those Who Are Receptive To It.

Thus I Came...to A Deep Religiosity, Which, However, Reached An Abrupt End At The Age Of 12. Through The Reading Of Popular Scientific Books I Soon Reached A Conviction That Much In The Stories Of The Bible Could Not Be True....suspicion Against Every Kind Of Authority Grew Out Of This Experience...an Attitude Which Has Never Left Me.

Mathematics Are Well And Good But Nature Keeps Dragging Us Around By The Nose.

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

Short Inspirational Life

The Moon Does Not Simply Disappear When We Are Not Looking At It.

Scientists Believe That Every Occurrence, Including The Affairs Of Human Beings, Is Due To The Laws Of Nature. Therefore A Scientist Cannot Be Inclined To Believe That The Course Of Events Can Be Influenced By Prayer, That Is, By A Supernaturally Manifested Wish.

Everything That The Human Race Has Done And Thought Is Concerned With The Satisfaction Of Deeply Felt Needs And The Assuagement Of Pain. One Has To Keep This Constantly In Mind If One Wishes To Understand Spiritual Movements And Their Development. Feeling And Longing Are The Motive Force Behind All Human Endeavor And Human Creation, In However Exalted A Guise The Latter May Present Themselves To Us.

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.

All Means Prove But Blunt Instruments, If They Have Not Behind Them A Living Spirit.

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.

Man Tries To Make For Himself In The Fashion That Suits Him Best A Simplified And Intelligible Picture Of The World; He Then Tries To Some Extent To Substitute This Cosmos Of His For The World Of Experience, And Thus To Overcome It. This Is What The Painter, The Poet, The Speculative Philosopher, And The Natural Scientists Do, Each In His Own Fashion. Each Makes This Cosmos And Its Construction The Pivot Of His Emotional Life, In Order To Find In This Way Peace And Security Which He Can Not Find In The Narrow Whirlpool Of Personal Experience.

Jesus Is Too Colossal For The Pen Of Phrasemongers, However Artful. No Man Can Dispose Of Christianity With A Bon Mot

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.)

In The View Of Such Harmony In The Cosmos Which I, With My Limited Human Mind, Am Able To Recognize, There Are Yet People Who Says There Is No God. But What Makes Me Really Angry Is That They Quote Me For Support Of Such Views. (the Expanded Quotable Einstein, Princeton University, Page 214)

Princeton University

In Matters Of Truth And Justice, There Is No Difference Between Large And Small Problems, For Issues Concerning The Treatment Of People Are All The Same.

Man Usually Avoids Attributing Cleverness To Somebody Else Unless It Is An Enemy.

The Pursuit Of Truth And Beauty Is A Sphere Of Activity In Which We Are Permitted To Remain Children All Our Lives.

The Economic Anarchy Of Capitalist Society As It Exists Today Is, In My Opinion, The Real Source Of Evil.

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

Funny Inspirational

I Believe In Intuition And Inspiration. Imagination Is More Important Than Knowledge. For Knowledge Is Limited, Whereas Imagination Embraces The Entire World, Stimulating Progress, Giving Birth To Evolution. It Is, Strictly Speaking, A Real Factor In Scientific Research.

But Then, After All, We Are All Alike, For We Are All Derived From The Monkey.

Every One Who Is Seriously Involved In The Pursuit Of Science Becomes Convinced That A Spirit Is Manifest In The Laws Of The Universe-a Spirit Vastly Superior To That Of Man, And One In The Face Of Which We With Our Modest Powers Must Feel Humble.

Lasting Harmony With A Woman (was) An Undertaking In Which I Twice Failed Rather Disgracefully.

Concern For Man Himself Must Always Constitute The Chief Objective Of All Technological Effort

In My Personal Experience I Have Hardly Come To Know The Wretchedness Of Mankind Better Than As A Result Of The General Theory Of Relativity And Everything Connected To It. But It Doesn't Bother Me.

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

Between The Difficulties, One Hides The Opportunity

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.

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

There Are Few Enough People With Sufficient Independence To See The Weaknesses And Follies Of Their Contemporaries And Remain Themselves Untouched By Them.

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

E Idea Of A Personal God Is Quite Alien To Me And Seems Even Naive. However, I Am Also Not A "freethinker" In The Usual Sense Of The Word Because I Find That This Is In The Main An Attitude Nourished Exclusively By An Opposition Against Naive Superstition. My Feeling Is Insofar Religious As I Am Imbued With The Consciousness Of The Insuffiency Of The Human Mind To Understand Deeply The Harmony Of The Universe Which We Try To Formulate As "laws Of Nature." It Is This Consciousness And Humility I Miss In The Freethinker Mentality. Sincerely Yours, Albert Einstein.

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.

It Is, In Fact, Nothing Short Of A Miracle That The Modern Methods Of Instruction Have Not Yet Entirely Strangled The Holy Curiosity Of Inquiry; For This Delicate Little Plant, Aside From Stimulation, Stands Mainly In Need Of Freedom; Without This It Goes To Wrack And Ruin Without Fail. It Is A Grave Mistake To Think That The Enjoyment Of Seeing And Searching Can Be Promoted By Means Of Coercion And A Sense Of Duty.

Unlimited Competition Leads To A Huge Waste Of Labor, And To That Crippling Of The Social Consciousness Of Individuals.

Science Has Gone A Long Way Toward Helping Man To Free Himself From The Burden Of Hard Labor; Yet, Science Itself Is Not A Liberator. It Creates Means, Not Goals. It Is Up To Men To Utilize Those Means To Achieve Reasonable Goals.

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.

Conventional Words Or Other Signs Have To Be Sought For Laboriously Only In A Second Stage, Where The Associative Play Already Referred To Is Sufficiently Established And Can Be Reproduced At Will.

A Country Cannot Simultaneously Prepare And Prevent War.

When A Man, After Long Years Of Searching, Chances Upon A Thought Which Discloses Something Of The Beauty Of This Mysterious Universe, He Should Not Therefore Be Personally Celebrated. He Is Already Sufficiently Paid By His Experience Of Seeking And Finding.

Mysterious Universe

The Intuitive Mind Is A Sacred Gift.

Gifts Of The Spirit

Faithful Servants

It Seems To Me That The Idea Of A Personal God Is An Anthropological Concept Which I Cannot Take Seriously. I Feel Also Not Able To Imagine Some Will Or Goal Outside The Human Sphere. My Views Are Near Those Of Spinoza: Admiration For The Beauty Of And Belief In The Logical Simplicity Of The Order Which We Can Grasp Humbly And Only Imperfectly. I Believe That We Have To Content Ourselves With Our Imperfect Knowledge And Understanding And Treat Values And Moral Obligations As A Purely Human Problem-the Most Important Of All Human Problems.

Except In Mathematics, The Shortest Distance Between Point A And Point B Is Seldom A Straight Line. I Don't Believe In Mathematics.

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

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

We Come Now To The Question: What Is A Priori Certain Or Necessary, Respectively In Geometry (doctrine Of Space) Or Its Foundations? Formerly We Thought Everything; Nowadays We Think Nothing. Already The Distance-concept Is Logically Arbitrary; There Need Be No Things That Correspond To It, Even Approximately.

Go Out As Far As You Can Go And Start From There

Humiliation And Mental Oppression By Ignorant And Selfish Teachers Wreak Havoc In The Youthful Mind That Can Never Be Undone And Often Exert A Baleful Influence In Later Life.

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

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

Hitler Appeared, A Man With Limited Intellectual Abilities And Unfit For Any Useful Work, Bursting With Envy And Bitterness Against All Whom Circumstance And Nature Had Favored Over Him....in His Desperate Ambition For Power He Discovered That His Speeches, Confused And Pervaded With Hate As They Were, Received Wild Acclaim By Those Whose Situation And Orientation Resembled His Own. He Picked Up This Human Flotsam On The Streets And In The Taverns And Organized Them Around Himself. This Is The Way He Launched His Political Career.

One Strength Of The Communist System Of The East Is That It Has Some Of The Character Of A Religion And Inspires The Emotions Of A Religion.

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.

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.

But Could Not Our Situation Be Compared To One Of A Menacing Epidemic? People Are Unable To View This Situation In Its True Light, For Their Eyes Are Blinded By Passion. General Fear And Anxiety Create Hatred And Aggressiveness. The Adaptation To Warlike Aims And Activities Has Corrupted The Mentality Of Man; As A Result, Intelligent, Objective And Humane Thinking Has Hardly Any Effect And Is Even Suspected And Persecuted As Unpatriotic.

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

Insanity: Doing The Same Thing Over And Over Again And Expecting Different Results.

This Is What The Painter, The Poet, The Speculative Philosopher, And The Natural Scientists Do, Each In His Own Fashion.

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

Music Has No Effect On Research Work, But Both Are Born Of The Same Source And Complement Each Other Through The Satisfaction They Bestow

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.

If I Were Not A Jew I Would Be A Quaker.

Most People Stop Looking When They Find The Proverbial Needle In The Haystack. I Would Continue Looking To See If There Were Other Needles.

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 Learned Many Years Ago Never To Waste Time Trying To Convince My Colleagues.

Fear Or Stupidity Has Always Been The Basis Of Most Human Actions.

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

Everyone Knew It Was Impossible, Until A Fool Who Didn't Know Came Along And Did It.

You Can Never Solve A Problem On The Level On Which It Was Created. Insanity: Doing The Same Thing Over And Over Again And Expecting Different Results. A Life Lived For Others Is A Life Worthwhile.

Creativity Is The Residue Of Time Wasted.

Concerning Matter, We Have Been All Wrong. What We Have Called Matter Is Energy, Whose Vibration Has Been So Lowered As To Be Perceptible To The Senses. There Is No Matter.

It Is The Supreme Art Of The Teacher To Awaken Joy In Creative Expression And Knowledge.

The Fear Of Death Is The Most Unjustified Of All Fears, For There's No Risk Of Accident For Someone Who's Dead.

Bureaucracy Is The Death Of All Sound Work.

Government Bureaucracy

If We Have The Courage To Decide Ourselves For Peace We Will Have Peace.

The Constitution Only Guarantees The American People The Right To Pursue Happiness. You Have To Catch It Yourself. A Table, A Chair, A Bowl Of Fruit And A Violin; What Else Does A Man Need To Be Happy?

My Position Concerning God Is That Of An Agnostic.

Reward And Punishment

Concepts That Have Proven Useful In Ordering Things Easily Achieve Such Authority Over Us That We Forget Their Earthly Origins And Accept Them As Unalterable Givens.

The Only Mistake In Life Is The Lesson Not Learned.

The Wireless Telegraph Is Not Difficult To Understand. The Ordinary Telegraph Is Like A Very Long Cat. You Pull The Tail In New York, And It Meows In Los Angeles. The Wireless Is The Same, Only Without The Cat.

Children Don’t Heed The Life Experiences Of Their Parents, And Nations Ignore History. Bad Lessons Always Have To Be Learned Anew.

When You Sit With A Nice Girl For Two Hours, It Seems Like Two Minutes; When You Sit On A Hot Stove For Two Minutes, It Seems Like Two Hours. That's Relativity.

A Man Who Is Convinced Of The Truth Of His Religion Is Indeed Never Tolerant. At The Least, He Is To Feel Pity For The Adherent Of Another Religion But Usually It Does Not Stop There. The Faithful Adherent Of A Religion Will Try First Of All To Convince Those That Believe In Another Religion And Usually He Goes On To Hatred If He Is Not Successful. However, Hatred Then Leads To Persecution When The Might Of The Majority Is Behind It.

If I Were To Start Taking Care Of My Grooming, I Would No Longer Be My Own Self.

Personally, I Experience The Greatest Degree Of Pleasure In Having Contact With Works Of Art. They Furnish Me With Happy Feelings Of An Intensity That I Cannot Derive From Other Sources.

For Me The Jewish Religion Like All Other Religions Is An Incarnation Of The Most Childish Superstitions.

Logic Will Get You From A To B. Imagination Will Take You Everywhere.

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.

If I Were To Remain Silent, I'd Be Guilty Of Complicity.

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.

I Would Absolutely Refuse Any Direct Or Indirect War Service And Would Try To Persuade My Friends To Do The Same, Regardless Of The Reasons For The Cause Of A War.

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.

The More I Learn Of Physics, The More I Am Drawn To Metaphysics.

I Have Little Patience With Scientists Who Take A Board Of Wood, Look For Its Thinnest Part, And Drill A Great Number Of Holes Where Drilling Is Easy.

In Quitting This Strange World He Has Once Again Preceded Me By A Little. That Doesn't Mean Anything. For Those Of Us Who Believe In Physics, This Separation Between Past, Present, And Future Is Only An Illusion, However Tenacious.

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.

Opinions About Obviousness Are To A Certain Extent A Function Of Time.

If The Facts Don't Fit The Theory, Change The Facts.

I Do Not At All Believe In Human Freedom In The Philosophical Sense... Schopenhauer’s Saying, ‘a Man Can Do What He Wants, But Not Will What He Wants,’ Has Been A Very Real Inspiration To Me Since My Youth; It Has Been A Continual Consolation In The Face Of Life’s Hardships, My Own And Others’, And An Unfailing Wellspring Of Tolerance. This Realization Mercifully Mitigates The Easily Paralyzing Sense Of Responsibility And Prevents Us From Taking Ourselves And Other People Too Seriously; It Is Conducive To A View Of Life Which, In Part, Gives Humour Its Due.

Cherish The Questions, For The Answers Keep Changing.

Mysticism Is In Fact The Only Criticism People Cannot Level Against My Theory.

Beyond The Realms Of What We See, Into The Regions Or The Unexplored Limited Only By Our Imaginations.

I Am Not An Atheist. I Do Not Know If I Can Define Myself As A Pantheist. The Problem Involved Is Too Vast For Our Limited Minds.

Don't Wait For Miracles, Your Whole Life Is A Miracle.

I Believe The Most Important Mission Of The State Is To Protect The Individual And Make It Possible For Him To Develop Into A Creative Personality.

What I Value In Life Is Quality Rather Then Quantity.

The World Is A Dangerous Place To Live; Not Because Of The People Who Are Evil, But Because Of The People Who Don't Do Anything About It.

My Political Ideal Is Democracy. Let Every Man Be Respected As An Individual And No Man Idolized.

I Received Your Letter Of June 10th. I Have Never Talked To A Jesuit Priest In My Life And I Am Astonished By The Audacity To Tell Such Lies About Me. From The Viewpoint Of A Jesuit Priest I Am, Of Course, And Have Always Been An Atheist.

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

If You Want The Answer To Anything, Go Sit In Nature For Awhile

The Bigotry Of The Nonbeliever Is For Me Nearly As Funny As The Bigotry Of The Believer.

One Must Take What Nature Gives As One Finds It.

I See My Life In Terms Of Music.

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

A Large Part Of Our Attitude Toward Things Is Conditioned By Opinions And Emotions Which We Unconsciously Absorb As Children From Our Environment. In Other Words, It Is Tradition—besides Inherited Aptitudes And Qualities—which Makes Us What We Are. We But Rarely Reflect How Relatively Small As Compared With The Powerful Influence Of Tradition Is The Influence Of Our Conscious Thought Upon Our Conduct And Convictions.

Out Of Clutter, Find Simplicity.

Selection [of Un Delegates] By Governments Cannot Give The Peoples Of The World The Feeling Of Being Fairly And Proportionately Represented. The Moral Authority Of The Un Would Be Considerable Enhanced If The Delegates Were Elected Directly By The People. Were They Responsible To An Electorate, They Would Have Much More Freedom To Follow Their Consciences.

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.

There Is An Atmosphere Of Well-sounding Oratory That Likes To Attach Itself To Dress Clothes. Away With It!

It Was The Experience Of Mystery - Even If Mixed With Fear - That Engendered Religion.

There Exists A Passion For Comprehension, Just As There Exists A Passion For Music. That Passion Is Rather Common In Children, But Gets Lost In Most People Later On. Without This Passion There Would Be Neither Mathematics Nor Natural Science.

The Greatest Tragedy Of Human Existence Is The Illusion Of Separateness.

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.

[i] Must Seek In The Stars That Which Was Denied [to Me] On Earth.

There Two Things That Are Infinite, Human Stupidity And The Universe, I Don't Know About The Universe

It Is High Time The Ideal Of Success Should Be Replaced With The Ideal Of Service.

My Relationship To The Jewish People Has Become My Strongest Human Bond, Ever Since I Became Fully Aware Of Our Precarious Situation Among The Nations Of The World.

Life Is A Great Tapestry. The Individual Is Only An Insignificant Thread In An Immense And Miraculous Pattern.

Had I Known That The Germans Would Not Succeed In Producing An Atomic Bomb, I Would Not Have Lifted A Finger.

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.

Strange Is Our Situation Here Upon Earth.

Even Though The Realms Of Religion And Science In Themselves Are Clearly Marked Off From Each Other, Nevertheless There Exist Between The Two Strong Reciprocal Relationships And Dependencies.

Science And Religion

A Forced Faithfulness Is A Bitter Fruit For All Concerned.

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

Any Man Who Can Drive Safely While Kissing A Pretty Girl Is Simply Not Giving The Kiss The Attention It Deserves.

Time Has No Independent Existence Apart From The Order Of Events By Which We Measure It.

The World Is Not Full Of Evil Because Of Those Who Do Wrong. It Is Full Of Evil Because Of Those Who Do Nothing.

Words Of Wisdom

I Believe In Intuitions And Inspirations...i Sometimes Feel That I Am Right. I Do Not Know That I Am.

Let Every Man Judge According To His Own Standards, By What He Has Himself Read, Not By What Others Tell Him.

Imagination Is The Highest Form Of Research.

The Best Design Is The Simplest One That Works.

Without The Sense Of Fellowship With Men Of Like Mind, Of Preoccupation With The Objective, The Eternally Unattainable In The Field Of Art And Scientific Research, Life Would Have Seemed To Me Empty.

[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.

All My Life I Have Dealt With Objective Matters; Hence I Lack Both The Natural Aptitude And The Experience To Deal Properly With People And To Carry Out Official Functions.

Your Ancestors Dragged These Black People From Their Homes By Force; And In The White Man's Quest For Wealth And An Easy Life They Have Been Ruthlessly Suppressed And Exploited, Degraded Into Slavery. The Modern Prejudice Against Negroes Is The Result Of The Desire To Maintain This Unworthy Condition.

The Physicists Say That I Am A Mathematician, And The Mathematicians Say That I Am A Physicist. I Am A Completely Isolated Man And Though Everybody Knows Me, There Are Very Few People Who Really Know Me.

Small Is The Number Of Them That See With Their Own Eyes And Feel With Their Own Hearts.

The Work On Satisfactory Formulation Of Technical Patents Was A True Blessing For Me. It Compelled Me To Be Many-sided In Thought, And Also Offered Important Stimulation For Thought About Physics. Following A Practical Profession Is A Blessing For People Of My Type. Because The Academic Career Puts A Young Person In A Sort Of Compulsory Situation To Produce Scientific Papers In Impressive Quantity, A Temptation To Superficiality Arises That Only Strong Characters Are Able To Resist.

Everything That Can Be Counted Does Not Necessarily Count; Everything That Counts Cannot Necessarily Be Counted.

I Think And Think For Months And Years. Ninety-nine Times, The Conclusion Is False. The Hundredth Time I Am Right.

Isn't It Strange That I Who Have Written Only Unpopular Books Should Be Such A Popular Fellow?

If I Can't Picture It, I Can't Understand It.

I Do Not Believe In Race As Such. Race Is A Fraud. All Modern People Are The Conglomeration Of So Many Ethnic Mixtures That No Pure Race Remains.

The One Who Walks Alone, Is Likely To Find Himself In Places No One Has Ever Been.

Being Different

Following The Crowd

God Always Takes The Simplest Way.

The Environment Is Everything That Isn't Me.

It Is Difficult Even To Attach A Precise Meaning To The Term "scientific Truth." So Different Is The Meaning Of The Word "truth" According To Whether We Are Dealing With A Fact Of Experience, A Mathematical Proposition Or A Scientific Theory. "religious Truth" Conveys Nothing Clear To Me At All.

I Have Remained A Simple Fellow Who Asks Nothing Of The World; Only My Youth Is Gone - The Enchanting Youth That Forever Walks On Air.

Imagination Is Vastly More Important Than Intelligence.

The Series Of Integers Is Obviously An Invention Of The Human Mind, A Self-created Tool Which Simplifies The Ordering Of Certain Sensory Experiences.

Peace Cannot Be Kept By Force. It Can Only Be Achieved By Understanding. You Cannot Subjugate A Nation Forcibly Unless You Wipe Out Every Man, Woman, And Child. Unless You Wish To Use Such Drastic Measures, You Must Find A Way Of Settling Your Disputes Without Resort To Arms.

The Indifference, Callousness And Contempt That So Many People Exhibit Toward Animals Is Evil First Because It Results In Great Suffering In Animals, And Second Because It Results In An Incalculably Great Impoverishment Of The Human Spirit.

They Come Into Being Not Through Demonstration But Through Revelation, Through The Medium Of Powerful Personalities.

The Fairest Thing We Can Experience Is The Mysterious. It Is The Fundamental Emotion That Stands At The Cradle Of True Art And True Science. It Is The Source Of All True Art And Science. He Who Knows It Not And Can No Longer Wonder, No Longer Feel Amazement, Is As Good As Dead, A Snuffed-out Candle.

I Have Tried 99 Times And Have Failed, But On The 100th Time Came Success.

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

It Is Abhorrent To Me When A Fine Intelligence Is Paired With An Unsavory Character.

I'm No More Intelligent Than The Next Guy. I'm Just More Curious.

That Deep Emotional Conviction Of The Presence Of A Superior Reasoning Power, Which Is Revealed In The Incomprehensible Universe, Forms My Idea Of God.

Discussion And Argument Are Essential Parts Of Science; The Greatest Talent Is The Ability To Strip A Theory Until The Simple Basic Idea Emerges With Clarity.

I Like The Swiss Because By And Large They Are More Humane Than The Other People Aming Whom I Have Lived.

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

Great Spirits Often Meet Violent Oppisition With Mediocre Minds.

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

I See Only With Deep Regret That God Punishes So Many Of His Children For Their Numerous Stupidities, For Which Only He Himself Can Be Held Responsible; In My Opinion, Only His Nonexistence Could Excuse Him.

Never Underestimate Your Own Ignorance.

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

At Present Every Coachman And Every Waiter Argues About Whether Or Not The Relativity Theory Is Correct.

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.

Man Has An Intense Desire For Assured Knowledge.

Genius Simply Cannot Be Reduced To A Set Of Rules For Anyone To Follow.

Mozart's Music Is So Pure And Beautiful That I See It As A Reflection Of The Inner Beauty Of The Universe.

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.

I Do Not Play Games. There Is Not Time For It. When I Get Through With Work, I Don't Want Anything That Requires The Working Of The Mind.

Time Is Just Something We Invented To Make Motion Seem Simple.

It Is Better To Believe Than To Disbelieve; In Doing You Bring Everything To The Realm Of Possibility.

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.

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.

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.

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

A Man's Moral Worth Is Not Measured By What His Religious Beliefs Are But Rather By What Emotional Impulses He Has Received From Nature During His Lifetime.

I Used To Go Away For Weeks In A State Of Confusion.

You Cannot Prevent And Prepare For War At The Same Time.

We Dance For Laughter, We Dance For Tears, We Dance For Madness, We Dance For Fears, We Dance For Hopes, We Dance For Screams, We Are The Dancers, We Create The Dreams.

I Like To Experience The Universe As One Harmonious Whole. Every Cell Has Life. Matter, Too, Has Life; It Is Energy Solidified. Our Bodies Are Like Prisons, And I Look Forward To Be Free, But I Don't Speculate On What Will Happen To Me. I Live Here Now, And My Responsibility Is In This World Now.

Pablo Casals Is A Very Great Artist. What I Admire Is The Firm Stand He Has Taken Not Only Against The Oppressors Of His Countrymen, But Also Against Those Opportunists Who Are Always Ready To Compromise With The Devil. He Perceives Clearly That The World Is In Greater Peril From Those Who Tolerate Or Encourage Evil Than From Those Who Actually Commit It.

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Joseph Goebbels

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