Albert Einstein Quotes

Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute.

I am truly a "lone traveler" and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart.

If I were wrong, wouldn't one be enough?

Most people say that it is the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are wrong: it is character.

It is the same with people as it is with riding a bike. Only when moving can one comfortably maintain one's balance.

I'm not an atheist. I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books.

From a certain temperature on, the molecules 'condense' without attractive forces; that is, they accumulate at zero velocity. The theory is pretty, but is there some truth in it.

However we select from nature a complex [of phenomena] using the criterion of simplicity, in no case will its theoretical treatment turn out to be forever appropriate (sufficient).... I do not doubt that the day will come when [general relativity], too, will have to yield to another one, for reasons which at present we do not yet surmise. I believe that this process of deepening theory has no limits.

The man with the greatest soul will always face the greatest war with the low minded person.

We are part of the whole which we call the universe, but it is an optical delusion of our mind that we think we are separate. This separateness is like a prison for us. Our job is to widen the circle of our compassion so we feel connected with all people and situations.

This change in the conception of reality is the most profound and the most fruitful that physics has experienced since the time of Newton. Refering to James Clerk Maxwell's contributions to physics.

It followed from the special theory of relativity that mass and energy are both but different manifestations of the same thing - a somewhat unfamiliar conception for the average mind. Furthermore, the equation E = mc², in which energy is put equal to mass, multiplied by the square of the velocity of light, showed that very small amounts of mass may be converted into a very large amount of energy and vice versa.

I have firmly decided to bite the dust with a minimum of medical assistance when my time comes, and up to then to sin to my wicked heart's content.

I believe that Gandhi’s views were the most enlightened of all the political men of our time.

When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second.

Too many of us look upon Americans as dollar chasers. This is a cruel libel, even if it is reiterated thoughtlessly by the Americans themselves.

He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice.

What physics looks for: The simplest possible system of thought which will bind together the observed facts.

Don't second guess the mistakes you've made, others will do that for you. Make things as simple as possible, but not simpler.

Go out as far as you can go and start from there

Reason is intuition's servant.

Compassionate people are geniuses in the art of living, more necessary to the dignity, security, and joy of humanity than the discoverers of knowledge.

Freedom of teaching and of opinion in book or press is the foundation for the sound and natural development of any people.

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

It is best, it seems to me, to separate one's inner striving from one's trade as far as possible. It is not good when one's daily break is tied to God's special blessing.

If tomorrow were never to come, it would not be worth living today.

Try not to become a man of success, but a man of value. Look around at how people want to get more out of life than they put in. A man of value will give more than he receives. Be creative, but make sure that what you create is not a curse for mankind.

Try first to be a man of value; success will follow.

I believe, indeed, that overemphasis on the purely intellectual attitude, often directed solely to the practical and factual, in our education, has led directly to the impairment of ethical values.

For an idea which, at first, does not seem absurd, there is no hope.

Genius simply cannot be reduced to a set of rules for anyone to follow.

The process of scientific discovery is, in effect, a continual flight from wonder.

If I would be a young man again and had to decide how to make my living, I would not try to become a scientist or scholar or teacher. I would rather choose to be a plumber or a peddler in hope to find that modest degree of independence still available under present circumstances.

I have yet to figure out whether it is I am that am crazy, or the world.

I like the Swiss because by and large they are more humane than the other people aming whom I have lived.

When I read the Bhagavad-Gita and reflect about how God created this universe everything else seems so superfluous

I have just got a new theory of eternity.

What is the meaning of human life, or of organic life altogether? To answer this question at all implies a religion.

The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.

The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.

You can move through life seeing nothing as a miracle, or seeing everything as a miracle.

A problem cannot be solved at the level of consciousness in which it occurs.

The facts, although interesting, are irrelevant.

The world we have made is a result of the level of thinking we have done thus far.

The consequence was a positively fanatic [orgy of] freethinking coupled with the impression that youth is being deceived by the state through lies; it was a crushing impression

Turkish soldiers are very brave. They love their homeland and they do not hesitate to give their lives for it if necessary.

I am by heritage a Jew, by citizenship a Swiss, and by makeup a human being, and only a human being, without any special attachment to any state or national entity whatsoever.

My success wasn't so much due to intelligence, but the fact that I stuck with problems longer.