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!

I sometimes ask myself how it came about that I was the one to develop the theory of relativity. The reason, I think, is that a normal adult never stops to think about problems of space and time. These are things which he has thought about as a child. Bu t my intellectual development was retarded,as a result of which I began to wonder about space and time only when I had already grown up.

Growth comes through analogy; through seeing how things connect, rather than only seeing how they might be different.

Even on the most solemn occasions I got away without wearing socks and hid that lack of civilization in high boots

Earnestly I must exert myself in order to return as much as I have received.

I have no extraordinary ability. I'm simply an inquisitive individual.

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.