Memorable Albert Einstein QuotesWe are pleased that you have stopped by our web site to review our selection of memorable quotes from Albert Einstein. We have attempted to provide the quotes as accurately as possible and, where available, cite the correct source

for the quote. However, we take no responsibility for errors that occur by accident and you are free to use the material as you wish but you are

responsible for its use.If you are interested in air pollution and its effects on human health and vegetation, we would invite you to visit our other pages on this web site.

OurIntroduction web page is a good place to begin the process of learning more about the subject. A.S.L. & Associates appreciates your taking the time

to visit us.

"The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as

good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed."

--"The World As I See It," originally published in FORUM AND CENTURY, 1931.

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

--Life magazine. May 2, 1955.

"Small is the number that see with their own eyesand feel with their own hearts."

--Albert Einstein.

"I'm enough of an artist to draw freely on my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited; imagination encircles

the world."

--Albert Einstein.

"The more success the quantum theory has, the sillier it looks"

--from a letter to Zangger, May 20, 1912.

"A man must learn to understand the motives of human beings, their illusions, and their sufferings."

--from an interview in the New York Times, September 1952.

"Curiosity is a delicate little plant which, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom"

--Autobiographical Notes. 1949.

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

--contribution to a publication commemorating the eightieth birthday of German rabbi and theologian Leo Baeck, 1953.

"I believe in intuitions and inspirations. I sometimes feel that I am right. I do not know if I am.

--G.S. Viereck interview, October 26, 1929, reprinted in "Glimpses of the Great" (1930).

"A happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwelltoo much on the future."

--CPAE, Vol 1., Doc 22, 1896.

"The important thing is to not stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity; of life; of the marvelous structure of reality..."

--from the Personal Memoir of William Miller, 1955.

"The most important 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 for life"

--Einstein, a Portrait, p. 102.

"The monotony of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind"

--Speech "Civilization and Science," at Royal Albert Hall, London, 1933.

"Science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration toward truth and understanding. This source of feeling, however, springs from the sphere of religion...The situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind"

--SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY, AND RELIGION: A SYMPOSIUM, 1941.

"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses

to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly."

--letter to Morris Raphael Cohen, professor emeritus of philosophy at the College of the City of New York, defending the controversial appointment of Bertrand Russell to a teaching position, March 19, 1940.

"What can the schools do to defend democracy? Should they preach a specific political doctrine? I believe they should not. If they are able to teach young

people to have a critical mind and a socially oriented attitude, they will have done all that is necessary."

--message to the New Jersey Education Association, Atlantic City, 1939.

"It would be better if you begin to teach others only after you yourself have learned something."

--quote from Einstein Archive 25-044, 1928.

"Taken on the whole, I would believe that Gandhi's views were the most enlightened of all the political men in our time. We should strive to do things

in his spirit...not to use violence in fighting for our cause, but by non-participation in what we believe is evil."

--United Nations radio interview recorded in Einstein's study, Princeton, New Jersey, 1950.

"Bear in mind that the wonderful things you learn in your schools are the work of many generations, produced by enthusiastic effort and infinite labor

in every country of the world. All this is put into your hands as your inheritance in order that you may receive it, honor it, add to it, and one day

faithfully hand it to your children. Thus do we mortals achieve immortality in the permanent things which we create in common."

--address to a group of children, 1934.

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

--quote from Out of My Later Years, p. 13.

"I am content in my later years. I have kept my good humor and take neither myself nor the next person seriously."

--quote from Einstein Archive 60-587, 1950.

" is not an end if we can live on in our children and the younger generation. For they are us; our bodies are only wilted leaves on the tree of life."

--letter to Dutch physicist Heike Kamerlingh-Onne's widow, February 25, 1926; Einstein Archive 14-389.

"It is not so very important for a person to learn facts. For that he does not really need a college. He can learn them from books. The value of an

education in a liberal arts college is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think something that cannot be learned from

textbooks."

--1921, on Thomas Edison's opinion that a college education is useless; quoted in Frank,Einstein: His Life and Times, p. 185.

"Science will stagnate if it is made to serve practical goals."

--Quoted in Nathan and Norden, Einstein on Peace, p. 402.

"After a certain high level of technical skill is achieved, science and art tend to coalesce in esthetics, plasticity, and form. The greatest scientists are always

artists as well."

--Remark made in 1923; recalled by Archibald Henderson, Durham Morning Herald, August 21, 1955; Einstein Archive 33-257.

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

--Albert Einstein

"The most precious things in life are not those you get for money."

--Ladies Home Journal. December 1946.

"Good acts are like good poems. One may easily get their drift, but they are not rationally understood."

--quote to Maurice Solovine, April 9, 1947.

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

--quote to Maurice Solovine, spring 1923.

"It is not so important where one settles down. The best thing is to follow your instincts without too much reflection."

--quote to Max Born, March 3, 1920.

"I believe that a simple and unassuming life is good for everybody, physically and mentally."

--quote from "The World as I See It" (1930), reprinted in Ideas and Opinions, 8.

"Mysticism is in fact the only criticism people cannot level against my theory."

--quote from R.W. Clark., Einstein "The Life and Times" 268.

"...The ideals which have guided my way, and time after time have given me the energy to face life, have been kindness, beauty, and truth."

--quote from "The World as I See It" (1930). Reprinted in Ideas and Opinions, 9.

"All of science is nothing more than the refinement of everyday thinking."

--quote from "Physics and Reality" (1936), reprinted in Ideas and Opinions, 290.

"God gave me the stubbornness of a mule and a fairly keen scent."

--quote from G.J. Whitrow, Einstein: The Man and His Achievement, 91.

"When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute - and it's longer than any hour. That's

relativity."

--quote from Journal of Exothermic Science and Technology (JEST, Vol. 1, No. 9; 1938).

"I have remained a simple fellow who asks nothing of the world; only my youth is gone - the enchanting youth that forever walks on air."

--quote to Anna Meyer-Schmid, May 12, 1909.

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

--quote from Ehlers, Liebes Hertz!, 45.

"The true value of a human being is determined primarily by how he has attained liberation from the self."

--quote from Einstein Archive 60-492, 1932; published in Mein Weltbild.

"A human being is a part of the whole, called by us the "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as

something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task

must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its

beauty."

--quoted in H. Eves Mathematical Circles Adieu (Boston 1977).

"The life of the individual has meaning only insofar as it aids in making the life of every living thing nobler and more beautiful..."

--quoted in Ehlers, Liebes Hertz!, 162.

"One should not pursue goals that are easily achieved. One must develop an instinct for what one can just barely achieve through one's greatest efforts."

--quote to Walter Daellenbach, May 31, 1915.

"I have little patience with scientists who take a board of wood, look for its thinnest part, and drill a great number of holes where drilling is easy."

--Albert Einstein (quoted by Philipp Frank in "Einstein's Philosophy of Science," Reviews of Modern Physics, Vol 21, No. 3 July 1949.

"Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile."

--quote to The New York Times, June 20, 1932.

"Falling in love is not at all the most stupid thing that people do-but gravitation cannot be held responsible for it."

--quote to Fred Wall, 1933.

"Work is the only thing that gives substance to life."

--quote to son Hans Albert, January 4, 1937.

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

--To Margot Einstein, after his sister's Maja's death, 1951; quote by Hanna Loewy in A&E Television Einstein Biography, VPI International, 1991.

" and knowledge is one of the finest attributes of man - though often it is most loudly voiced by those who strive for it the least."

--quote from The Goal of Human Existence, April 11, 1943. [AEA 28-587]

"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."

--quote to L. Manners, March 19, 1954. [AEA 60-401]

"Why is it that nobody understands me, yet everybody likes me."

--quote from New York Times, March 12, 1944

"It is abhorrent to me when a fine intelligence is pairedwith an unsavory character."

--quote to Jacob Laub, May 19, 1909 [AEA 15-480]

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

--quote to Ernst Bloch, November 15, 1950 [AEA 34-332]

"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."

--Letter to Elsa Einstein, August 11, 1913; CPAE, Vol. 5, Doc. 466

"Our death is not an end if we can live on in our children and the younger generation. For they are us; our bodies are only wilted leaves on the tree of

life."

--Letter to Dutch physicist Heike Kamerlingh-Onne's widow, February 25, 1926; [AEA 14-389]

"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."

--quote from "My Credo," 1932. [AEA 28-218]

"If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things."

--quote by Ernst Straus, in French, Einstein: A Centenary Volume, p. 32.

"Music does not influence research work, but both are nourished by the same sort of longing, and they complement each other in the release they offer."

--letter to Paul Plaut, October 23, 1928; Einstein Archive 28-065; quoted in Dukas and Hoffmann, Albert Einstein, the Human Side, p. 78.

"Never regard your study as a duty, but as the enviable opportunity to learn to know the liberating influence of beauty in the realm of the spirit for your

own personal job and to the profit of the community to which your later work belongs."

--In the Princeton freshman publication The Dink, 1933; quoted in Don Oberdorfer,Princeton: The First 250 Years (Princeton University Press, 1955), p. 127.

"Fear or stupidity has always been the basis of most human actions."

--Letter to E. Mulder, April 1954; Einstein Archive 60-609.

"Children don't heed the life experiences of their parents, and nations ignore history. Bad lessons always have to be learned anew."

--Aphorism, October 12, 1923; Einstein Archive 36-589.

"Science will stagnate if it is made to serve practical goals."

--Quoted in Nathan and Norden, Einstein on Peace, p.402.

"In one's youth every person and every event appear to be unique. With age one becomes much more aware that similar events recur. Later on, one is less often delighted or surprised, but also less disappointed than in earlier years."

--Letter to Queen Elizabeth of Belgium, January 3, 1954; Einstein Archive 32-408.

"Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the life-long attempt to acquire it."

--Letter to an admirer, March 22, 1954; quoted in Dukas and Hoffmann, Albert Einstein, the Human Side, p.44.

"Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it. One should earn one's living by work of which one is sure one is capable. Only when we do not have to be accountable to anybody can we find joy in scientific

endeavor."

--Letter to an admirer, March 24, 1951; quoted in Dukas and Hoffmann, Albert Einstein, the Human Side, p.57.

"What Artistic and Scientific Experience Have in Common - Where the world ceases to be the scene of our personal hopes and wishes, where we face it as

free beings admiring, asking, and observing, there we enter the realm of Art and Science. If what is seen and experienced is portrayed in the language of logic, we are engaged in science. If it is communicated through forms whose

connections are not accessible to the conscious mind but are recognized intuitively as meaninful, then we are engaged in art. Common to both is the loving devotion to that which transcends personal concerns and volition."

--response to the editor of a German magazine dealing with modern art requesting a short article, January 27, 1921; quoted in Dukas and Hoffmann, Albert Einstein, the Human Side, p.37.

"It is true that the grasping of truth is not possible without empirical basis. However, the deeper we penetrate and the more extensive and embracing our

theories become the less empirical knowledge is needed to determine those theories."

--Einstein to T. McCormack, December 9, 1952, AEA 36-549.

"As for , I know from my own painful searching, with its many blind alleys, how hard it is to take a reliable step, be it ever so small, towards the

understanding of that which is truly significant."

--Letter to an admirer, February 13, 1934; quoted in Dukas and Hoffmann, Albert Einstein, the Human Side, p.18.

"The scientific theorist is not to be envied. For Nature, or more precisely experiment, is an exorable and not very friendly judge of his work. It never

says "yes" to a theory. In the most favorable cases it says "Maybe," and in the great majority of cases simply "No." If an experiment agrees with a theory it

means for the latter "Maybe," and if it does not agree it means "No." Probably every theory will some day experience its "No" - most theories, soon

after conception."

--Entry into memory book for Professor Kammerling-Onnes, November 11, 1922; quoted in Dukas and Hoffmann, Albert Einstein, the Human Side, p.18.

"There comes a time when the mind takes a higher plane of knowledge but can never prove how it got there. All great discoveries have involved such a

leap."

"A society's competitive advantage will come not from how well its schools teach the multiplication and periodic table, but from how well they stimulate

imagination and creativity."

--Einstein to Vivienne Anderson, May 12, 1953, AEA 60-716.

"It is important to foster individuality for only the individual can produce the new ideas."

--Einstein message for Ben Scheman dinner, March 1952, AEA 28-931.

"The value of a college education is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think."

--New York Times, May 18, 1921; Frank 1947, 185; Brian 1966, 129, Illy, 25-32.Frank, P. 1947. Einstein: A Centenary Volume. Cambridge, Mass.; Harvard University Press.; Brian, D. 1996. Einstein: A Life. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley.; Illy, J., ed. 2005, February. "Einstein Due Today." Manuscript. (Courtesy of the Einstein Papers Project, Pasadena.)

"A new idea comes suddenly and in a rather intuitive way, but intuition is nothing but the outcome of earlier intellectual experience."

--Einstein to Dr. H.L. Gordon, May 3, 1949, AEA 58-217.

"The simplest picture one can form about the creation of an empirical science is along the lines of an inductive method. Individual facts are selected and

grouped together so that the laws that connect them become apparent...However, the big advances in scientific knowledge originated in

this way only to a small degree...The truly great advances in our understanding of nature originated in a way almost diametrically opposed to

induction. The intuitive grasp of the essentials of a large complex of facts leads the scientist to the postulation of a hypothetical basic law or laws. From these

laws, he derives his conclusions."

--Einstein, Induction and Deduction in Physics, Berliner Togeblatt, Dec. 25, 1919, CPAE 7:28.

"But nature did not deem it her business to make the discovery of her laws easy for us."

--Einstein to Erwin Freundlich, September 1, 1911.

"One of the strongest motives that leads men to art and science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness. Such men make

this cosmos and its construction the pivot of their emotional life, in order to find the peace and security which they cannot find in the narrow whirlpool of

personal experience."

--Einstein, "Principles of Research," 1918, in Einstein Albert, Ideas and Opinions, New York: Random House, 224.

"With fame I become more and more stupid, which of course is a very common phenomenon."

--Einstein to Heinrich Zangger, December 24, 1919.

"Belief in an external world independent of the perceiving subject is the basis of all natural science."

--Einstein, "Maxwell's Influence on the Evolution of the Idea of Physical Reality," 1931, in Einstein, Albert, Ideas and Opinions, New York: Random House, 266.

"It is open to every man to choose the direction of his striving and every man may take comfort from the fine saying that is more precious than its

possession."

--William Laurence, "Einstein Baffled by Cosmos Riddle," New York Times, May 16, 1940.

"Look into nature, and then you will understand it better."

--Einstein to Lina Kocherthaler, July 27, 1951, AEA 38-303; Sayen, Jamie, 1985, Einstein in America: The Scientist's Conscience in the Age of Hitler and Hiroshima. New York: Crown, 231.

"The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility...The fact that it is comprehensible is a miracle."

--Einstein, "Physics and Reality," Journal of the Franklin Institute (Mar. 1936), in Einstein, 1954, Ideas and Opinions. New York: Random House, 292.

Collected Quotes from Albert Einstein "Any intelligent 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."

"Imagination is more important than knowledge." "Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love." "I want to know God's thoughts; the rest are details." "The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax." "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." "The only real valuable thing is intuition." "A person starts to live when he can live outside himself." "I am convinced that He (God) does not play dice." "God is subtle but he is not malicious." "Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character." "I never think of the future. It comes soon enough." "The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility." "Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing." "Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind." "Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new."

"Great spirits have often encountered violent opposition from weak minds." "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." "Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." "Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it." "The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources." "The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education." "God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates

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

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

criminal." "Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding." "The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is

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

we created them." "Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in

school." "The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason

for existing." "Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine

are still greater." "Equations are more important to me, because politics is for the present, but

an equation is something for eternity." "If A is a success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play;

and z is keeping your mouth shut." "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure

about the the universe." "As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, as far

as they are certain, they do not refer to reality." "Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge

is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods." "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World

War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." "In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must,

above all, be a sheep." "The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there's no risk of

accident for someone who's dead." "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." "Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense

that goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them!"

"No, this trick won't work...How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love?"

"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."

"Yes, we have to divide up our time like that, between our politics and our equations. But to me our equations are far more important, for politics are only a matter of present concern. A mathematical equation stands forever."

"The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking...the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker."

"Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence."

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed."

"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeeded be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."

"The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge."

"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."

"You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat."

"One had to cram all this stuff into one's mind for the examinations, whether one liked it or not. This coercion had such a deterring effect on me that, after I had passed the final examination, I found the consideration of any scientific problems distasteful to me for an entire year."

"...one of the strongest motives that lead men to art and science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness, from the fetters of one's own ever-shifting desires. A finely tempered nature longs to escape from the personal life into the world of objective perception and thought."

"He who joyfully marches to music rank and file, has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action. It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder."

"A human being is a part of a whole, called by us _universe_, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest... a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

"Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts." (Sign hanging in Einstein's office at Princeton)

Copyright: Kevin Harris 1995 (may be freely distributed with this acknowledgement)