- You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.
- You can’t blame gravity for falling in love.
- You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.
- You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created.
- You ask me if I keep a notebook to record my great ideas. I’ve only ever had one.
- Without deep reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people.
- Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.
- Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters.
- 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.
- When the solution is simple, God is answering.
- Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.
- We still do not know one thousandth of one percent of what nature has revealed to us.
- We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.
- We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.
- We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.
- We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
- We cannot despair of humanity, since we ourselves are human beings.
- Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.
- Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.
- True religion is real living; living with all one’s soul, with all one’s goodness and righteousness.
- True art is characterized by an irresistible urge in the creative artist.
- 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.
- To the Master’s honor all must turn, each in its track, without a sound, forever tracing Newton’s ground.
- To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science.
- 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.
- 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 comes a time when the mind takes a higher plane of knowledge but can never prove how it got there.
- 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.
- 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.
- The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.
- The value of a man should be seen in what he gives and not in what he is able to receive.
- The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.
- The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.
- The road to perdition has ever been accompanied by lip service to an ideal.
- 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 pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.
- The process of scientific discovery is, in effect, a continual flight from wonder.
- The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.
- The only source of knowledge is experience.
- The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.
- The only real valuable thing is intuition.
- The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.
- The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.
- The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind.
- The man of science is a poor philosopher.
- The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.
- The high destiny of the individual is to serve rather than to rule.
- The hardest thing to understand in the world is the income tax.
- 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 gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.
- The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there’s no risk of accident for someone who’s dead.
- The faster you go, the shorter you are.
- The environment is everything that isn’t me.
- The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.
- The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.
- 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 attempt to combine wisdom and power has only rarely been successful and then only for a short while.
- That deep emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God.
- Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal.
- Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.
- Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing.
- Solitude is painful when one is young, but delightful when one is more mature.
- Small is the number of people who see with their eyes and think with their minds.
- Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.
- Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one’s living at it.
- Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.
- 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.
- 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.
- Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas.
- Politics is for the present, but an equation is for eternity.
- People love chopping wood. In this activity one immediately sees results.
- Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.
- 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.
- 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.
- Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.
- 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.
- One may say the eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility.
- Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.
- 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.
- Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced.
- No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.
- No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.
- Never lose a holy curiosity.
- Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.
- Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.
- 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.
- Mozart’s music is so pure and beautiful that I see it as a reflection of the inner beauty of the universe.
- Most people say that it is the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are wrong: it is character.
- Most of the fundamental ideas of science are essentially simple, and may, as a rule, be expressed in a language comprehensible to everyone.
- Morality is of the highest importance – but for us, not for God.
- Memory is deceptive because it is colored by today’s events.
- Love is a better teacher than duty.
- Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
- Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.
- Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized.
- Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.
- Knowledge of what is does not open the door directly to what should be.
- Joy in looking and comprehending is nature’s most beautiful gift.
- It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.
- It was the experience of mystery – even if mixed with fear – that engendered religion.
- 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 should be possible to explain the laws of physics to a barmaid.
- It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.
- It is strange to be known so universally and yet to be so lonely.
- It is only to the individual that a soul is given.
- It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.
- It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.
- It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.
- It gives me great pleasure indeed to see the stubbornness of an incorrigible nonconformist warmly acclaimed.
- Isn’t it strange that I who have written only unpopular books should be such a popular fellow?
- Intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them.
- Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death.
- Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
- Information is not knowledge.
- In order to be an immaculate member of a flock of sheep, one must above all be a sheep oneself.
- 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.
- Imagination is more important than knowledge.
- Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.
- If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.
- If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.
- If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?
- If the facts don’t fit the theory, change the facts.
- If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.
- If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music.
- I want to know all Gods thoughts; all the rest are just details.
- I want to go when I want. It is tasteless to prolong life artificially. I have done my share; it is time to go. I will do it elegantly.
- I very rarely think in words at all. A thought comes, and I may try to express it in words afterwards.
- I used to go away for weeks in a state of confusion.
- I think and think for months and years. Ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right.
- I shall never believe that God plays dice with the world.
- I never think of the future – it comes soon enough.
- I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity.
- I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
- I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.
- I have just got a new theory of eternity.
- 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 do not believe in the God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil.
- 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 cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation and is but a reflection of human frailty.
- I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for everyone, best both for the body and the mind.
- 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 am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination.
- I am a deeply religious nonbeliever – this is a somewhat new kind of religion.
- Human beings must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.
- Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism – how passionately I hate them!
- 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.
- He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.
- Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.
- Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love.
- God may be subtle, but he isn’t plain mean.
- God does not play dice.
- God always takes the simplest way.
- Force always attracts men of low morality.
- 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.
- Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.
- Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.
- Everyone should be respected as an individual, but no one idolized.
- Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.
- Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater.
- Confusion of goals and perfection of means seems, in my opinion, to characterize our age.
- 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.
- Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.
- Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.
- Before God we are all equally wise – and equally foolish.
- 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.
- As far as I’m concerned, I prefer silent vice to ostentatious virtue.
- Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.
- Anyone who doesn’t take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either.
- Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.
- Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves.
- Anger dwells only in the bosom of fools.
- An empty stomach is not a good political adviser.
- All these primary impulses, not easily described in words, are the springs of man’s actions.
- All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded the individual.
- All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree.
- A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy?
- A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy?
- A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.
- A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.
“We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.”
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