Albert Einstein quotes

If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.

The more I study science, the more I believe in God.

A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy?

Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.

Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves.

God is clever, but not dishonest.

Information is not knowledge.

A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.

It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.

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. THAT'S relativity.

The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.

Any fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage - to move in the opposite direction.

Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.

As the circle of light increases, so does the circumference of darkness around it.

Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.

Everyone should be respected as an individual, but no one idolized.

God does not play dice.

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.

Heroism at command, senseless brutality, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be part of so base an action!

I want to know all Gods thoughts; all the rest are just details.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.

The value of a man should be seen in what he gives and not in what he is able to receive.

The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it.

Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.

Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.

God may be subtle, but he isn't plain mean.

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.

It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer.

Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.

True religion is real living; living with all one's soul, with all one's goodness and righteousness.

Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.

Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either.

Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater.

Everything should be as simple as it is, but not simpler.

God always takes the simplest way.

God does not play dice with the universe.

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

I never think of the future - it comes soon enough.

If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts.

Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.

Never lose a holy curiosity.

Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.

Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.

The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.

The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.

We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.

When the solution is simple, God is answering.

A perfection of means, and confusion of aims, seems to be our main problem.

A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.

An empty stomach is not a good political adviser.

Anger dwells only in the bosom of fools.

Any fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction.

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.

Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.

As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.

But could not our situation be compared to one of a menacing epidemic? People are unable to view this situation in its true light, for their eyes are blinded by passion. General fear and anxiety create hatred and aggressiveness. The adaptation to warlike aims and activities has corrupted the mentality of man; as a result, intelligent, objective and humane thinking has hardly any effect and is even suspected and persecuted as unpatriotic.

Concern for man and his fate must always form the chief interest of all technical endeavors. Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations.

Every day, man is making bigger and better fool-proof things, and every day, nature is making bigger and better fools. So far, I think nature is winning.

He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.

Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism - how passionately I hate them!

How I wish that somewhere there existed an island for those who are wise and of goodwill! In such a place even I would be an ardent patriot.

How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love?

I am not only a pacifist but a militant pacifist. I am willing to fight for peace. Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war.

I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.

I think and think for months and years. Ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right.

If A is a success in life, than A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut.

If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?

Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions.

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death.

It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.

It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.

Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.

Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.

Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas.

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.

The finest emotion of which we are capable is the mystic emotion. Herein lies the germ of all art and all true science. Anyone to whom this feeling is alien, who is no longer capable of wonderment and lives in a state of fear is a dead man. To know that what is impenatrable for us really exists and manifests itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, whose gross forms alone are intelligible to our poor faculties - this knowledge, this feeling ... that is the core of the true religious sent iment. In this sense, and in this sense alone, I rank myself amoung profoundly religious men.

The hardest thing to understand in the world is the income tax.

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

The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.

To the Master's honor all must turn, each in its track, without a sound, forever tracing Newton's ground.

A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; 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.

As far as I'm concerned, I prefer silent vice to ostentatious virtue.

Force always attracts men of low morality.

Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as [Gandhi] ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth.

I am a deeply religious nonbeliever - this is a somewhat new kind of religion.

If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.

It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.

Love is a better teacher than duty.

Morality is of the highest importance - but for us, not for God.

Most of the fundamental ideas of science are essentially simple, and may, as a rule, be expressed in a language comprehensible to everyone.

My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.

Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.

Nationalism is an infantile sickness. It is the measles of the human race.

No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.

One strength of the communist system of the East is that it has some of the character of a religion and inspires the emotions of a religion.

People love chopping wood. In this activity one immediately sees results.

That deep emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God.

The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is at all comprehensible.

The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.

The only real valuable thing is intuition.

The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.

There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle.

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.

We have to do the best we can. This is our sacred human responsibility.

When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That's relativity.

Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters.

Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.

You ask me if I keep a notebook to record my great ideas. I've only ever had one.

You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.

You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.

A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy?

All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree.

All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded the individual.

All these primary impulses, not easily described in words, are the springs of man's actions.

Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish.

Before God we are equally wise and equally foolish.

Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.

Confusion of goals and perfection of means seems, in my opinion, to characterize our age.

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.

Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted.

Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.

Great spirits have always encountered violent oppostion from mediocre minds.

He who joyfully marches 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.

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.

Human beings must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.

I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination.

I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.

I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for everyone, best both for the body and the mind.

I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it.

I do not believe in the God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil.

I do not believe that civilization will be wiped out in a war fought with the atomic bomb. Perhaps two-thirds of the people of the earth will be killed.

I have just got a new theory of eternity.

I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity.

I shall never believe that God plays dice with the world.

I used to go away for weeks in a state of confusion.

I want to know God's thoughts...the rest are details.

If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.

In matters of truth and justice, there is no difference between large and small problems, for issues concerning the treatment of people are all the same.

In order to be an immaculate member of a flock of sheep, one must above all be a sheep oneself.

In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity.

Intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them.

Isn't it strange that I who have written only unpopular books should be such a popular fellow?

It gives me great pleasure indeed to see the stubbornness of an incorrigible nonconformist warmly acclaimed.

It is only to the individual that a soul is given.

It is strange to be known so universally and yet to be so lonely.

It should be possible to explain the laws of physics to a barmaid.

It stands to the everlasting credit of science that by acting on the human mind it has overcome man's insecurity before himself and before nature.

It was the experience of mystery - even if mixed with fear - that engendered religion.

It was the experience of mystery -- even if mixed with fear -- that engendered religion.

Joy in looking and comprehending is nature's most beautiful gift.

Knowledge of what is does not open the door directly to what should be.

Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized.

Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.

Memory is deceptive because it is colored by today's events.

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

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

Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced.

Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.

Occurrences in this domain are beyond the reach of exact prediction because of the variety of factors in operation, not because of any lack of order in nature.

One may say the eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility.

Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master. For this reason mastery demands all of a person.

Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.

Perfection of means and confusion of ends seem to characterize our age.

Politics is for the present, but an equation is for eternity.

Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.

Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it.

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

Solitude is painful when one is young, but delightful when one is more mature.

Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing.

Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal.

The attempt to combine wisdom and power has only rarely been successful and then only for a short while.

The devil has put a penalty on all things we enjoy in life. Either we suffer in health or we suffer in soul or we get fat.

The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.

The environment is everything that isn't me.

The faster you go, the shorter you are.

The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there's no risk of accident for someone who's dead.

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

The grand aim of all science is to cover the greatest number of empirical facts by logical deduction from the smallest number of hypotheses or axioms.

The high destiny of the individual is to serve rather than to rule.

The important thing is not to stop questioning.

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.

The laws of gravity cannot be held responsible for people falling in love.

The man of science is a poor philosopher.

The man who regards life as meaningless is not merely unfortunate, but almost disqualified for life.

The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind.

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

The only source of knowledge is experience.

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

The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.

The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one.

The road to perdition has ever been accompanied by lip service to an ideal.

The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.

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

The world is not dangerous because of those who do harm but because of those who look at it without doing anything.

The world we have created is a product of our thinking; it cannot be changed without changing our thinking.

There comes a time when the mind takes a higher plane of knowledge but can never prove how it got there.

There could be no fairer destiny for any physical theory than that it should point the way to a more comprehensive theory in which it lives on as a limiting case.

There is no logical way to the discovery of these elemental laws. There is only the way of intuition, which is helped by a feeling for the order lying behind the appearance.

Things should be made as simple as possible, but not any simpler.

To know what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty...this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness.

To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science.

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.

True art is characterized by an irresistible urge in the creative artist.

Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.

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

We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.

We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.

We still do not know one thousandth of one percent of what nature has revealed to us.

When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than any talent for abstract, positive thinking.

When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.

When I study philosophical works I feel I am swallowing something which I don't have in my mouth.

Without deep reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people.

You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created.

You teach me baseball and I'll teach you relativity...no we must not. You will learn about relativity faster than I learn baseball.