Albert Einstein Inspirational Quotes Edited by Arden Bercovitz, Ph.D., CSP
| "Problems cannot be solved at the same level of consciousness that created them." | |
| "Genius simply cannot be reduced to a set of rules for anyone to follow." | |
| "My only genius talent is inquisitiveness." | |
| "Common sense needs constant reappraisal." | |
| "Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities." | |
| "It would be a sad situation if the bag was better than the meat wrapped in it." | |
| "This is a time, when there seems to be a particular need for friends of wisdom and truth to join together." | |
| "Why does this magnificent applied science, which saves work and makes life easier, bring us so little happiness? The simple answer runs: Because we have not yet learned to make sensible use of it." | |
| "I do not believe in the immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it." | |
| "Never regard your study as a duty, but as the enviable opportunity to learn to know the liberating influence of beauty in the realm of the spirit for your own personal joy and to the profit of the community to which your later work belongs." | |
| "Common sense is the deposit of prejudice laid down in the mind before the age of eighteen." | |
| "One is born into a herd of buffaloes and must be glad if one is not trampled underfoot before one's time." | |
| "A happy man is too content with the present to think too much about the future." | |
| "With me every peep becomes a trumpet solo." | |
| "There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will." | |
| "It gives me great pleasure, indeed, to see the stubbornness of an incorrigible nonconformist warmly received." | |
| "The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible." | |
| "I have lived to prove Thoreau's contention that a man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone." | |
| "It is just as important to make knowledge live and keep it alive as to solve specific problems." | |
| "How hard it is to take a reliable step, be it ever so small, towards understanding that which is truly significant." | |
| "Perfection of means and confusion of goals seems, to my opinion, to characterize our age." | |
| "The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained liberation from the self." | |
| "Opinions about obviousness are to a certain extent a function of time." | |
| "Applying the axioms of physical science to human life has something reprehensible to it." | |
| "I was supposed to choose a "practical profession,"but this was simply unbearable to me." | |
| "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." | |
| "Mathematics are well and good but Nature keeps dragging us around by the nose." | |
| "Arrows of hate have been shot at me too; but they never hit me, because somehow they belonged to another world, with which I have no connection whatsoever." | |
| "The scientific theorist is not to be envied. For Nature, or more precisely experiment, is an inexorable 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.'. . . Probably every theory will some day experience its 'No.' Most theories, soon after conception." | |
| "One must console oneself with the thought that time has a sieve through which most of these important things run into the ocean of oblivion and what remains after this selection is often still trite and bad." | |
| "The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one." | |
| "The next world war will be fought with stones." | |
| "Nature conceals her secrets because she is sublime, not because she is a trickster." | |
| "In any conflict between humanity and technology, humanity will win." | |
| "I have survived two wars, two wives and Hitler." | |
| "No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong." | |
| "Creativity is seeing what others see and thinking what no one else has ever thought." | |
| "Never let yourself be seduced by any problem, no matter how difficult." | |
| "I simply imagine it so, then go about to prove it." | |
| "Imagination is more important than knowledge." | |
| "Have the courage to take your own thoughts seriously, for they shape you." | |
| "There are two ways to live your life: 1) as though nothing were a miracle; 2) as though everything were." | |
| "Qualities I sought in a scientific theory were naturalness, inner perfection and logical simplicity from an aesthetic approach." | |
| "I rarely think in words at all." | |
| "The words or the language, as they are written or spoken, do not seem to play any role in my mechanism of thought. The physical entities which seem to serve as elements in thought are certain signs and more-or-less clear images which can be `voluntarily' reproduced and combined. The above-mentioned elements are, in my case, of visual and some of muscular type." | |
| "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." | |
| "The essentials of being a person of my type lies precisely in what they think and how they think, not in what they do. Your thoughts shape you." | |
| "All our thinking is of this nature, a free play with concepts." | |
| "The monotony of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind." | |
| "The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe, contemplating the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to understand a little of this mystery every day." | |
| "Music does not influence my research work - both are nourished by the same longing. They compliment one another in the release they offer." | |
| "In the past it never occurred to me that every casual remark of mine would be snatched up and recorded. Otherwise I would have crept further into my shell." | |
| "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." | |
| "The rest of my life (as a 39 year old) I want to reflect on what life is." | |
| "It is also a natural thing for a serious young man that he should form for himself as precise an idea as possible of the goal of his desires." | |
| "Intuitive powers played a central role in my scientific work, not wild speculation, yet a valued resource when no other approach was available." | |
| "I urge a willingness to reserve a place in rational science for non-rational wonder." | |
| "I have no particular talent, just inquisitiveness." | |
| "I was just more stubborn and more passionate than most about physics." | |
| "The greatest talent is the ability to strip away a theory until the simple basic ideas emerge with clarity." | |
| "Ninety nine failed solutions equals a gain of 99 pieces of information." | |
| "I owe as much of my success to an uncompromising obstinacy as to any original ideas." | |
| "Even trivial events demonstrate strong devotion to the Universe and small concern for ego." | |
| "Inner freedom is an infrequent gift of nature and a worthy object for the individual." | |
| "In a sailboat I become oblivious to everything else in the world." | |
| "When a blind beetle crawl over the surface of a globe, he does not notice that the track he has covered is curved. I was lucky enough to have spotted it." | |
| "In my relativity theory I set up a clock at every point in space, but in reality I find it difficult to provide even one clock in my room." | |
| "The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science." | |
| "The years of anxious searching in the dark, with their intense longing, their alternations of confidence and exhaustion and the final emergence into the light -- only those who have experienced it can understand it." | |
| "Only six men in the world know about relativity. I am not one of them. When I ask them to explain, they confused me." | |
| "The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking." | |
| "Body and soul are not two different things, but only two different ways of perceiving the same thing. Similarly, physics and psychology are only different attempts to link our experiences together by way of systematic thought." | |
| "Scientific greatness is less a matter of intelligence than character; if the scientist refuses to compromise or accept incomplete answers and persists in grappling the most basic and difficult questions." | |
| "My sailing system -- set sail, make it fast, no thoughts of energy or velocity, loll back, let boat drift." | |
| "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)." | |
| "Mozart's music was so pure and perfect, that one felt he had merely found it -- that it had always existed as part of the inner beauty of the Universe, waiting to be revealed." | |
| "One thing I have learned in a long life; all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and child-like -- and yet it is the most precious thing we have." | |
| "Nature conceals her mystery by her essential grandeur." | |
| "The beauty of it is that we have to content ourselves with the recognition of the miracle, beyond which there is no legitimate way out." | |
| "Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it. One should earn one's living by work of which one is sure one is capable. Only when we do not have to be accountable to anybody can be find joy in scientific endeavor." | |
| "The normal objective of my thought affords no insight into the dark places of human will and feeling." | |
| "Everybody acts not only under external compulsion but also in accordance with inner necessity." | |
| "The more one chases after quanta, the better they hide themselves." | |
| "The great need to grasp principles had caused me to spend most of my time on fruitless persuits." | |
| "I have little patience for scientists who take a board of wood, look for the thinnest part, and drill a great number of holes when the drilling is easy." | |
| "Wisdom is not a product of schooling, but of the life-long attempt to acquire it." | |
| "The world as we see it is only the world as we see it. Others may see it differently." | |
| "Any society which does not insist upon respect for all life must necessarily decay." | |
| "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 prevails." | |
| "I want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts; the rest are details." | |
| "In the shadow of the atomic bomb it has become even more apparent that all men are, indeed, brothers." | |
| "The essence of life seems to me to lie in the affirmative attitude to the life of all creatures. The life of the individual only has meaning in so far as it aids in making the life of every living thing nobler and more beautiful. Life is sacred, that is to say it is the supreme value to which all other values are subordinate." | |
| "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." | |
| "The ideals which have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth ... The trite subjects of human efforts - possessions, outward success, luxury - have always seemed to me contemptible." | |
| "My political ideal is democracy. Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized." | |
| "We cannot despair of humanity, since we are ourselves human beings." | |
| "Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge in the field of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods." | |
| "The satisfaction of physical needs is indeed the indispensable pre-condition of a satisfactory existence, but in itself it is not enough. In order to be content, men must also have the possibility of developing their intellectual and artistic powers to whatever extent accords with their personal characteristics and abilities." | |
| "One who scorns the power of intuition will never rise above the ranks of journeyman calculator." | |
| "As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality." | |
| "If everybody lived as I do, surely the writing of romance novels would never have come into being." | |
| "Despite my being an old gypsy there is a tendency to respectability inherent in old age." | |
| "I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals Himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns Himself with the fates and actions of human beings." | |
| "Agreements about what is good or not, are usually not worth much. It is very much like art, is it not an art to lead a good life? | |
| "As a human being one has been endowed with just enough intelligence to be able to see clearly how utterly inadequate that intelligence is when confronted with what exists. If such humility could be conveyed when confronted with what exists. If such humility could be conveyed to everyone, the world of human activities would be more appealing." | |
| "One does not make wars less likely to occur by formulating rules of warfare." | |
| "For us (physicists) the distinction between past, present and future is only an illusion, albeit a stubborn one." | |
| "All means prove but blunt instruments, if they have not behind them a living spirit." | |
| "Man usually avoids attributing cleverness to somebody else, unless it is an enemy." | |
| "Before God we are all equally wise and equally foolish." | |
| "Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them." | |
| "I always found I was in the best of company, alone." | |
| "The world as we see it is only the world as we see it. Others may see it differently." | |
| "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." | |
| "The crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future career." | |
| "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." | |
| "To act intelligently in human affairs is only possible if an attempt is made to understand the thoughts, motives, and apprehension of one's opponent so fully that one can see the world through their eyes." | |
| "Love is a better teacher than sense of duty." | |
| "Setting an example is not the main means of influencing another; it is the only way." | |
| "External conditions can, to a certain extent, reduce, but never cancel individual repsonsibility." | |
| "I have never felt I was wasting time. Science is a process of trial and error. The only sure way to avoid making mistakes is to have no ideas." | |
| "The great moral teachers of humanity were in a way artistic geniuses in the art of living." | |
| "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." | |
| "Earnestly I must exert myself in order to return as much as I have received." | |
| "Most teachers waste their time asking questions which are intended to discover what a pupil does not know, whereas the true art of questioning has for its purpose to discover what the pupil knows or is capable of knowing." | |
| "A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary." | |
| "Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it." | |
| "Convictions can best be supported with experience and clear thinking." | |
| "The most superior of scientific goals is to embrace a maximum of experiment with a minimum of hypotheses." | |
| "When we are working at something, we come down from our high logical horse and sniff around with our nose to the ground. Then we obliterate our traces in order to become more God-like." | |
| "The only rational way of educating is to be an example. If one can not help it, a warning example." | |
| "Education is that which remains if one has forgotten everything ever learned in school." | |
| "Work is the only thing I do to escape the corruption of praise." | |
| "One can only continue to expect to be read if one omits everything that is unimportant." | |
| "It is easy to say something new, if all senses one will eschew. But hardly ever is found, that the new is also sound." | |
| "What good is a reputation not put to good use." | |
| "For me a simple message, to think and act with courage, independence and imagination." | |
| "Everyone likes me, yet nobody understands me." | |
| "Long live impudence. It was my guardian angel in this world." | |
| "My only refuge, as a serious young man, from the despair of my financial burden to my family, is that I did everything I could to never permit myself any amusements or diversions except those afforded by my studies." | |
| "Force attracts men of low morality." | |
| "I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves. This ethical basis I call the ideal of the pigsty." | |
| "Every kind of peaceful cooperation among men is primarily based on mutual trust and only secondarily on institutions such as courts of justice and police." | |
| "You think you have troubles with mathematics . . . I assure you mine are still bigger." | |
| "To punish me for my contempt of authority, Fate made me an authority myself." | |
| "The only justifiable purpose of political institutions is to assure the unhindered development of the individual." | |
| "The attempt to combine wisdom and power has only rarely been successful and then only for a short while." | |
| "While it is true that an inherently free and scrupulous person may be destroyed, such an individual can never be enslaved or used as a blind tool." | |
| "Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding." | |
| "The aim (of education) must be the training of independently acting and thinking individuals who, however, see in the service to the community their highest life achievement." | |
| "To obtain an assured favorable response from people, it is better to offer them something for their stomachs rather than their brains." | |
| "Try not to become a person of success, but rather try to become a person of value." | |
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