I have reached an age where if someone tells me to wear socks, I dont have to

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.

I am also convinced that one gains the purest joy from spirited things only when they are not tied in with earning one's livelihood.

No fairer destiny could be allotted to any physical theory than that it should of itself point out the way to the introduction of a more comprehensive theory, in which it lives on as a limiting case.

Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.

How was I able to live alone before, my little everything? Without you I lack self-confidence, passion for work, and enjoyment of life--in short, without you, my life is no life. [Written to his wife, Mileva]

It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere... Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.