Albert Einstein Quotes

The woman who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. The woman who walks alone is likely to find herself in places no one has ever been before.

The aim of science is, on the one hand, as complete a comprehension as possible of the connection between perceptible experiences in their totality, and, on the other hand, the achievement of this aim by employing a minimum of primary concepts and relations.

Nevertheless, it is necessary to remember that a planned economy is not yet socialism. A planned economy as such may be accompanied by the complete enslavement of the individual. The achievement of socialism requires the solution of some extremely difficult socio-political problems: how is it possible, in view of the far-reaching centralisation of political and economic power, to prevent bureaucracy from becoming all-powerful and overweening? How can the rights of the individual be protected and therewith a democratic counterweight to the power of bureaucracy be assured?

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?

Man is, at one and the same time, a solitary being and a social being.

Do things sound better in your head before you say them, or do you even run them through there first?

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.

The ideals which have always shone before me and filled me with the joy of living are goodness, beauty, and truth. To make a goal of comfort or happiness has never appealed to me; a system of ethics built on this basis would be sufficient only for a herd of cattle.

I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation and is but a reflection of human frailty.

I have not eaten enough of the tree of knowledge, though in my profession I am obligated to feed on it regularly.

Nothing happens til something moves.

For scientific endeavor is a natural whole the parts of which mutually support one another in a way which, to be sure, no one can anticipate.

We cannot despair of humanity, since we ourselves are human beings.

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.

The world we have created is a product of our thinking.

I refuse to make money out of my science. My laurel is not for sale like so many bales of cotton.

Human beings are not condemned, because of their biological constitution, to annihilate each other or to be at the mercy of a cruel, self-inflicted fate.

God is a scientist, not a magician.

We can't solve today's problems with the mentality that created them.

When Albert Einstein was asked what he would really like to know about the Universe he replied,'is it friendly?

One scientific epoch ended and another began with James Clerk Maxwell.

Mozart's music is so pure and beautiful that I see it as a reflection of the inner beauty of the universe.

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.

The point is to develop the childlike inclination for play and the childlike desire for recognition and to guide the child over to important fields for society. Such a school demands from the teacher that he be a kind of artist in his province.

The most important human endeavor is the striving for morality in our actions. Our inner balance and even our very existence depend on it. Only morality in our actions can give beauty and dignity to life.

The trite objects of human efforts-possessions, superficial success, luxury-have always seemed contemptible to me.

Small is the number of people who see with their eyes and think with their minds.

The real difficulty, the difficulty which has baffled the sages of all times, is rather this: how can we make our teaching so potent in the motional life of man, that its influence should withstand the pressure of the elemental psychic forces in the individual?

The world will not evolve past its current state of crisis by using the same thinking that created the situation.

Organized people are just too lazy to go looking for what they want.

No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.

No worthy problem is ever solved within the plane of its original conception.

Honestly, I cannot understand what people mean when they talk about the freedom of the human will. I have a feeling, for instance, that I will something or other; but what relation this has with freedom I cannot understand at all. I feel that I will to light my pipe and I do it; but how can I connect this up with the idea of freedom? What is behind the act of willing to light the pipe ? Another act of willing?

Strange is our situation here on Earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to divine a purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: that man is here for the sake of other men - above all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness depends.

An evening everyone agrees, is a lost evening.

Time is what the clock says.

One must shy away from questionable undertakings, even when they bear a high-sounding name.

The gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.

How do I work? I grope.

Love is not the stupidest thing a man does, but it cannot be blamed on gravity.

Chess holds its master in its own bonds, shackling the mind and brain so that the inner freedom of the very strongest must suffer.

A scientist is a mimosa when he himself has made a mistake, and a roaring lion when he discovers a mistake of others.

Failure is only postponed success as long as courage 'coaches' ambition.

The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.

If you've never failed, you've never tried anything new.

Concern for man himself and his fate must always form the chief interest of all technical endeavors, concern for the great unsolved problems of the organization of labor and the distribution of goods-in order that the creations of our mind shall be a blessing and not a curse to mankind. Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations.

The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them.

A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of others.