Background Image

...

There Lies The Weaknesss Of Positivists And Professional Atheists Who Are Elated Because They Feel That They Have Not Only Successfully Rid The World Of Gods But "bared The Miracles." (that Is, Explained The Miracles. - Ed.) Oddly Enough, We Must Be Satisfied To Acknowledge The "miracle" Without There Being Any Legitimate Way For Us To Approach It . I Am Forced To Add That Just To Keep You From Thinking That -weakened By Age-i Have Fallen Prey To The Clergy.

-Albert Einstein

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

There Lies The Weaknesss

Albert Einstein

...

There Lies The Weaknesss Of Positivists And Professional Atheists Who Are Elated Because They Feel That They Have Not Only Successfully Rid The World Of Gods But "bared The Miracles." (that Is, Explained The Miracles. - Ed.) Oddly Enough, We Must Be Satisfied To Acknowledge The "miracle" Without There Being Any Legitimate Way For Us To Approach It . I Am Forced To Add That Just To Keep You From Thinking That -weakened By Age-i Have Fallen Prey To The Clergy.

Views: 8176

Topic

More From Albert Einstein

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

If There Is No Price To Be Paid, It Is Also Not Of Value.

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

A Finely Tempered Nature Longs To Escape From The Personal Life Into The World Of Objective Perception And Thought.

The Wonder Of Nature Does Not Become Smaller Because One Cannot Measure It By The Standards Of Human Moral And Human Aims.

Failure Is Success In Progress

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

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

Condemnation Without Investigation Is The Height Of Ignorance

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

Knowledge Experience

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

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.

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.

Be A Voice Not An Echo.

A Conflict Arises When A Religious Community Insists On The Absolute Truthfulness Of All Statements Recorded In The Bible. This Means An Intervention On The Part Of Religion Into The Sphere Of Science; This Is Where The Struggle Of The Church Against Doctrines Of Galileo And Darwin Belongs.

No Idea Is Conceived In Our Mind Independent Of Our Five Senses [i.e., No Idea Is Divinely Inspired].

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

It Is True That My Parents Were Worried Because I Began To Speak Fairly Late, So That They Even Consulted A Doctor. I Can't Say How Old I Was - But Surely Not Less Than Three.

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

Academic Chairs Are Many, But Wise And Noble Teachers Are Few; Lecture-rooms Are Numerous And Large, But The Number Of Young People Who Genuinely Thirst After Truth And Justice Is Small

Occurrences In This Domain Are Beyond The Reach Of Exact Prediction Because Of The Variety Of Factors In Operation, Not Because Of Any Lack Of Order In Nature.

If Only I Had Known, I Should Have Become A Watchmaker.

Information Is Not Knowledge.

Thought Provoking

The Problems Of Today Can Only Be Solved At A Higher Level Of Thinking Than That Which Created Them

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

Newton Did Not Know What Happened To The Apple, And I Can Prove This When The Next Eclipse Comes.

It Is Only Men Who Are Free, Who Create The Inventions And Intellectual Works Which To Us Moderns Make Life Worth While.

In The Midst Of Difficulty Lies Opportunity.

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

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.

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

I Am Content In My Later Years. I Have Kept My Good Humor And Take Neither Myself Nor The Next Person Seriously.

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

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

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

One Lives One's Life Under Constant Tension, Until It's Time To Go For Good

The Minority, The Ruling Class At Present, Has The Schools And Press, Usually The Church As Well, Under Its Thumb. This Enables It To Organize And Sway The Emotions Of The Masses, And Make Its Tool Of Them.

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?

The Further The Spiritual Evolution Of Mankind Advances, The More Certain It Seems To Me That The Path To Genuine Religiosity Does Not Lie Through The Fear Of Life, And The Fear Of Death, And Blind Faith, But Through Striving After Rational Knowledge.

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

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

Nationalism, On My Opinion, Is Nothing More Than An Idealistic Rationalization For Militarism And Aggression.

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

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

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.

Marriage Is But Slavery Made To Appear Civilized.

One May Say The Eternal Mystery Of The World Is Its Comprehensibility.

The Only Thing That You Absolutely Have To Know, Is The Location Of The Library.

Analytics Will Never Tell You Everything You Want To Know.

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

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.

We Are All Life Trying To Live, Among Other Life Trying To Live.

Each Act Is An Island In Time, To Be Judged On Its Own.

How Insidious Nature Is When One Is Trying To Get At It Experimentally.

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.

Subtle Is The Lord. Malicious, He Is Not.

Epistemology Without Contact With Science Becomes An Empty Scheme. Science Without Epistemology Is-insofar As It Is Thinkable At All-primitive And Muddled.

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

With Fame I Become More And More Stupid, Which Of Course Is A Very Common Phenomenon.

When A Man Is Sufficiently Motivated, Discipline Will Take Care Of Itself.

School Failed Me, And I Failed The School. It Bored Me. The Teachers Behaved Like Feldwebel (sergeants). I Wanted To Learn What I Wanted To Know, But They Wanted Me To Learn For The Exam. What I Hated Most Was The Competitive System There, And Especially Sports. Because Of This, I Wasn't Worth Anything, And Several Times They Suggested I Leave.

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

A Conviction Akin To Religious Feeling Of The Rationality Or Intelligibility Of The World Lies Behind All Scientific Work Of A High Order.

During The Last Century, And Part Of The One Before, It Was Widely Held That There Was An Unreconcilable Conflict Between Knowledge And Belief.

Time Is Relative; Its Only Worth Depends Upon What We Do As It Is Passing.

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.

Don't Let The Measurable Drive Out The Relevant

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

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

Let Me Tell You What I Look Like: Pale Face, Long Hair, And A Tiny Start Of A Paunch. In Addition, An Awkward Gait, And A Cigar In The Mouth And A Pen In Pocket Or Hand.

I Have Become Rather Like King Midas, Except That Everything Turns Not Into Gold But Into A Circus.

The Step Between Genius And Insanity Is Very Short.

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

If I Had My Life To Live Over Again, I Would Elect To Be A Trader Of Goods Rather Than A Student Of Science. I Think Barter Is A Noble Thing.

All That Is Valuable In Human Society Depends Upon The Opportunity For Development Accorded The Individual.

Imagination Is More Important Than Knowledge. For Knowledge Is Limited To All We Now Know And Understand, While Imagination Embraces The Entire World, And All There Ever Will Be To Know And Understand.

Science Is The Century-old Endeavor To Bring Together By Means Of Systematic Thought The Perceptible Phenomena Of This World Into As Thorough-going An Association As Possible.

Balance In Large Measure Is Knowing The Things That Can Be Changed, Putting Them In Proper Perspective, And Recognizing The Things That Will Not Change."

People Should Be More Like Animals . . . They Should Be More Intuitive; They Should Not Be Too Conscious Of What They Do While They Do It.

The Restriction Of Knowledge To An Elite Group Destroys The Spirit Of The Society And Leads To Its Intellectual Impoverishment.

Small Is The Number Of People Who See With Their Eyes And Think With Their Minds.

Understanding Physics Is Child's Play When Compared To Understanding Child's Play.

He Who Finds Though That Lets Us Penetrate Even A Little Deeper Into The Eternal Mystery Of Nature Has Been Granted Great Grace. He Who, In Addition, Experiences The Recognition, Sympathy, And Help Of The Best Minds Of His Times, Had Been Given Almost More Happiness Than One Man Can Bear.

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).

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.

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.

People Love Chopping Wood. In This Activity One Immediately Sees Results.

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.

A Man's Value To The Community Primarily Depends On How Far His Feelings, Thoughts, And Actions Are Directed Towards Promoting The Good Of His Fellows.

Once You Stop Learning, You Start Dying

My Scientific Work Is Motivated By An Irresistible Longing To Understand The Secrets Of Nature And By No Other Feeling. My Love For Justice And Striving To Contribute Towards The Improvement Of Human Conditions Are Quite Independent From My Scientific Interests.

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

Common Sense Needs Constant Reappraisal.

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.

Every Day I Remind Myself That My Inner And Outer Life Are Based On The Labors Of Other Men, Living And Dead, And That I Must Exert Myself In Order To Give In The Same Measure As I Have Received And Am Still Receiving.

The Only Reason For Time Is So That Everything Doesn't Happen At Once.

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

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

Marie Curie Is, Of All Celebrated Beings, The Only One Whom Fame Has Not Corrupted.

The Basic Laws Of The Universe Are Simple, But Because Our Senses Are Limited, We Can’t Grasp Them. There Is A Pattern In Creation.

What I See In Nature Is A Magnificent Structure That We Can Comprehend Only Very Imperfectly, And That Must Fill A Thinking Person With A Feeling Of Humility. This Is A Genuinely Religious Feeling That Has Nothing To Do With Mysticism.

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

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

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

My Life Is A Simple Thing That Would Interest No One. It Is A Known Fact That I Was Born, And That Is All That Is Necessary.

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

If I Had It [life] To Do All Over Again, I'd Have Been A Plumber.

Incompetence Is The True Crisis.

What Is Essential In The Life Of A Man Of My Kind Is What He Thinks And How He Thinks, And Not What He Does Or Suffers.

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

Heroism On Command, Senseless Violence, And All The Loathsome Nonsense That Goes By The Name Of Patriotism - How Passionately I Hate Them!

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

As Our Circle Of Knowledge Expands, So Does The Circumference Of Darkness Surrounding It.

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

In Any Conflict Between Humanity And Technology, Humanity Will Win.

God Has Given Me A Mule-like Stubbornness To Stick With A Difficult Problem And The Intuitive Powers To Conceptualize Complex Hypothetical Situations In My Mind.

Not All That Counts, Can Be Counted

Although I Am A Typical Loner In My Daily Life, My Awareness Of Belonging To The Invisible Community Of Those Who Strive For Truth, Beauty, And Justice Has Prevented Me From Feelings Of Isolation.

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

Success = 1 Part Work + 1 Part Play + 1 Part Keep Your Mouth Shut

The Gift Of Fantasy Has Meant More To Me Than My Talent For Absorbing Positive Knowledge.

If Men As Individuals Surrender To The Call Of Their Elementary Instincts, Avoiding Pain And Seeking Satisfaction Only For Their Own Selves, The Result For Them All Taken Together Must Be A State Of Insecurity, Of Fear, And Of Promiscuous Misery.

I Am A Jew, But I Am Enthralled By The Luminous Figure Of The Nazarene….no One Can Read The Gospels Without Feeling The Actual Presence Of Jesus.

He Who Has Never Been Deceived By A Lie Does Not Know The Meaning Of Bliss.

"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."

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.

As Long As I Have Any Choice In The Matter, I Shall Live Only In A Country Where Civil Liberty, Tolerance And Equality Of All Citizens Before The Law Prevail.

I Never Commit To Memory Anything That Can Easily Be Looked Up In A Book

The Formulation Of The Problem Is Often More Essential Than Its Solution, Which May Be Merely A Matter Of Mathematical Or Experimental Skill.

Imagination Creativity

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

America Is Today The Hope Of All Honorable Men Who Respect The Rights Of Their Fellow Men And Who Believe In The Principle Of Freedom And Justice.

While You're Trying To Get Ahead, Remember To Get Aheart As Well. When Your Only Problem Is A Nail, All You Want Is A Decent Hammer. There Are Only Two Ways To Live Your Life: One Is As Though Nothing Is A Miracle; The Other Is As Though Everything Is A Miracle.

This Is A Question Too Difficult For A Mathematician. It Should Be Asked Of A Philosopher"(when Asked About Completing His Income Tax Form)

Everyone Likes Me, Yet Nobody Understands Me.

Nobody Understands Me

God Is Clever, But Not Dishonest.

Only Six Men In The World Know About Relativity. I Am Not One Of Them. When I Ask Them To Explain, They Confused Me.

What Counts Can't Always Be Counted; What Can Be Counted Doesn't Always Count.

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

It Is Humankind's Duty To Respect All Life, Not Only Animals Have Feelings But Even Also Trees And Plants.

Time And Space Are Not Conditions Of Existence, Time And Space Is A Model For Thinking

What A Sad Era When It Is Easier To Smash An Atom Than A Prejudice.

An Oligarchy Of Private Capital Cannot Be Effectively Checked Even By A Democratically Organized Political Society Because Under Existing Conditions, Private Capitalists Inevitably Control, Directly Or Indirectly, The Main Sources Of Information.

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.

It Is Enough For Me To Contemplate The Mystery Of Conscious Life Perpetuating Itself Through All Eternity, To Reflect Upon The Marvelous Structure Of The Universe Which We Dimly Perceive, And To Try Humbly To Comprehend An Infinitesimal Part Of The Intelligence Manifested In Nature.

What Can The Schools Do To Defend Democracy? Should They Preach A Specific Political Doctrine? I Believe They Should Not. If They Are Able To Teach Young People To Have A Critical Mind And A Socially Oriented Attitude, They Will Have Done All That Is Necessary.

Ethical Axioms Are Found And Tested Not Very Differently From The Axioms Of Science. Truth Is What Stands The Test Of Experience.

The Most Beautiful Emotion We Can Experience Is The Mystical. It Is The Power Of All True Art And Science. He To Whom This Emotion Is A Stranger, Who Can No Longer Wonder And Stand Rapt In Awe, Is As Good As Dead. To Know That What Is Impenetrable To Us Really Exists, Manifesting Itself As The Highest Wisdom And The Most Radiant Beauty, Which Our Dull Faculties Can Comprehend Only In Their Most Primitive Forms - This Knowledge, This Feeling, Is At The Center Of True Religiousness. In This Sense, And In This Sense Only, I Belong To The Rank Of Devoutly Religious Men.

I Believe That I Have Really Found The Relationship Between Gravitation And Electricity, Assuming That The Miller Experiments Are Based On A Fundamental Error. Otherwise, The Whole Relativity Theory Collapses Like A House Of Cards.

I Now See The Necessity Of A Beginning.

Where There Is Love, There Is No Imposition.

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.

I Am A Determinist. As Such, I Do Not Believe In Free Will...practically, I Am, Nevertheless, Compelled To Act As If Freedom Of The Will Existed. If I Wish To Live In A Civilized Community, I Must Act As If Man Is A Responsible Being.

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

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.

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.

Show Me A Satisfied Man, And I'll Show You A Failure.

Infinite Intelligence

Is There Not A Certain Satisfaction In The Fact That Natural Limits Are Set To The Life Of The Individual, So That At The Conclusion It May Appear As A Work Of Art?

For The Most Part We Humans Live With The False Impression Of Security And A Feeling Of Being At Home In A Seemingly Familiar And Trustworthily Physical And Human Environment. But When The Expected Course Of Everyday Life Is Interrupted, We Realize That We Are Like Shipwrecked People Trying To Keep Their Balance On A Miserable Plank In The Open Sea, Having Forgotten Where They Came From And Not Knowing Whether They Are Drifting. But Once We Fully Accept This, Life Becomes Easier And There Is No Longer Any Disappointment.

If The Bee Disappeared Off The Surface Of The Globe, Then Man Would Have Only Four Years Of Life Left. No More Bees, No More Pollination, No More Plants, No More Animals, No More Man.

Everyone Sits In The Prison Of His Own Ideas; He Must Burst It Open, And That In His Youth, And So Try To Test His Ideas On Reality.

When A Blind Beetle Crawls Over The Surface Of A Globe He Doesn't Notice That The Track He Has Covered Is Curved. I Was Lucky Enough To Have Spotted It.

The Press, Which Is Mostly Controlled By Vested Interests, Has An Excessive Influence On Public Opinion.

The Genius Is In Making The Complex Simple.

Since Our Inner Experiences Consist Of Reproductions, And Combinations Of Sensory Impressions, The Concept Of A Soul Without A Body Seem To Me To Be Empty And Devoid Of Meaning.

A Theory Is The More Impressive The Greater Is The Simplicity Of Its Premises, The More Different Are The Kinds Of Things It Relates And The More Extended The Range Of Its Applicability.

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

We Are In The Position Of A Little Child Entering A Huge Library, Whose Walls Are Covered To The Ceiling With Books In Many Different Languages. The Child Knows That Someone Must Have Written Those Books. It Does Not Know Who Or How. It Does Not Understand The The Languages In Which They Are Written. The Child Notes A Definite Plan In The Arrangement Of The Books, A Mysterious Order, Which It Does Not Comprehend But Only Dimly Suspects.

I Said Before, The Most Beautiful And Most Profound Religious Emotion That We Can Experience Is The Sensation Of The Mystical. And This Mysticality Is The Power Of All True Science. If There Is Any Such Concept As A God, It Is A Subtle Spirit, Not An Image Of A Man That So Many Have Fixed In Their Minds. In Essence, My Religion Consists Of A Humble Admiration For This Illimitable Superior Spirit That Reveals Itself In The Slight Details That We Are Able To Perceive With Our Frail And Feeble Minds.

Even On The Most Solemn Occasions I Got Away Without Wearing Socks And Hid That Lack Of Civilization In High Boots

Mere Thinking Cannot Reveal To Us The Highest Purpose.

My Position Concerning God Is That Of An Agnostic. I Am Convinced That A Vivid Consciousness Of The Primary Importance Of Moral Principles For The Betterment And Ennoblement Of Life Does Not Need The Idea Of A Law-giver, Especially A Law-giver Who Works On The Basis Of Reward And Punishment.

The Individual Feels The Vanity Of Human Desires And Aims, And The Nobility And Marvelous Order Which Are Revealed In Nature And In The World Of Thought. He Feels The Individual Destiny As An Imprisonment And Seeks To Experience The Totality Of Existence As A Unity Full Of Significance.

If You Want Your Children To Be Intelligent, Read Them Fairy Tales. If You Want Them To Be More Intelligent, Read Them More Fairy Tales.

If I Were Wrong, Wouldn't One Be Enough?

Only Strong Characters Can Resist The Temptation Of Superficial Analysis.

I Do Not Like To State An Opinion On A Matter Unless I Know The Precise Facts.

Morality Is Of The Highest Importance - But For Us, Not For God.

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

Give Back To The World At Least What You've Received.

An Autocratic System Of Coercion, In My Opinion, Soon Degenerates. For Force Always Attracts Men Of Low Morality, And I Believe It To Be An Invariable Rule That Tyrants Of Genius Are Succeeded By Scoundrels. For This Reason I Have Always Been Passionately Opposed To Systems Such As We See In Italy And Russia To-day.

The Intuitive Mind Is A Sacred Gift.

Gifts Of The Spirit

Faithful Servants

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.

Make Everything As Simple As Possible, But Not Simpler. A Man Should Look For What Is, And Not For What He Thinks Should Be. We Cannot Solve Our Problems With The Same Thinking We Used When We Created Them. A Question That Sometimes Drives Me Hazy: Am I Or Are The Others Crazy? Any Intelligent Fool Can Make Things Bigger And More Complex... It Takes A Touch Of Genius - And A Lot Of Courage To Move In The Opposite Direction. All Religions, Arts And Sciences Are Branches Of The Same Tree. It's Not That I'm So Smart, It's Just That I Stay With Problems Longer.

No Scientist Thinks In Formulae.

The Mind Can Proceed Only So Far Upon What It Knows And Can Prove. There Comes A Point Where The Mind Takes A Higher Plane Of Knowledge, But Can Never Prove How It Got There. All Great Discoveries Have Involved Such A Leap

It Strikes Me As Unfair, And Even In Bad Taste, To Select A Few Of Them For Boundless Admiration, Attributing Superhuman Powers Of Mind And Character To Them. This Has Been My Fate, And The Contrast Between The Popular Estimate Of My Powers And Achievements And The Reality Is Simply Grotesque.

Most Of The Fundamental Ideas Of Science Are Essentially Simple, And May, As A Rule, Be Expressed In A Language Comprehensible To Everyone.

Never Let Yourself Be Seduced By Any Problem, No Matter How Difficult.

The Really Valuable Thing In The Pageant Of Human Life Seems To Me Not The Political State, But The Creative, Sentient Individual, The Personality; It Alone Creates The Noble And The Sublime, While The Herd As Such Remains Dull In Thought And Dull In Feeling.

If You Feed Your Mind As Often As You Feed Your Stomach, Then You'll Never Have To Worry About Feeding Your Stomach Or A Roof Over Your Head Or Clothes On Your Back.

Roof Over Your Head

Yes, We Now Have To Divide Up Our Time Like That, Between Politics And Our Equations. But To Me Our Equations Are Far More Important, For Politics Are Only A Matter Of Present Concern. A Mathematical Equation Stands Forever.

Inner Freedom Is An Infrequent Gift Of Nature And A Worthy Object For The Individual.

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

A Person Who Never Made A Mistake Never Tried Anything New.

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

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

My Deep Religiosity [...] Found An Abrupt Ending At The Age Of Twelve, Through The Reading Of Popular Scientific Books.

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

The Stupid Are Invincible.

Trending Author

Edwidge Danticat

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Category