The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.

A ship is safe at shore but it's not built for that.

The wonder of nature does not become smaller because one cannot measure it by the standards of human moral and human aims.

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.

But the creative principle resides in mathematics. In a certain sense, therefore, I hold true that pure thought can grasp reality, as the ancients dreamed.

The distinctions separating the social classes are false; in the last analysis they rest on force.

Why do people speak of great men in terms of nationality? Great Germans, great Englishmen? Goethe always protested against being called a German poet. Great men are simply men and are not to be considered from the point of view of nationality, nor should the environment in which they were brought up be taken into account.