Albert Einstein Quotes

789 Sourced Quotes

It can scarcely be denied that the supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience.

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

Albert Einstein
But there is another reason for the high repute of mathematics: it is mathematics that offers the exact natural sciences a certain measure of security which, without mathematics, they could not attain.

Albert Einstein
Arrows of hate have been aimed at me too, but they have never hit me, because somehow they belonged to another world with which I have no connection whatsoever.

Albert Einstein
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.

Albert Einstein
Generations to come, it may well be, will scarce believe that such a man as this one ever in flesh and blood walked upon this Earth.

Albert Einstein
It may affront the military-minded person to suggest a regime that does not maintain any military secrets.

Albert Einstein
Often in evolutionary processes a species must adapt to new conditions in order to survive. Today the atomic bomb has altered profoundly the nature of the world as we know it, and the human race consequently finds itself in a new habitat to which it must adapt its thinking.

Albert Einstein
For the most part, I do the thing which my own nature prompts me to do. It is embarrassing to earn so much respect and love for it.

Albert Einstein
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.

Albert Einstein
I do not need any promise of eternity to be happy. My eternity is now. I have only one interest: to fulfill my purpose here where I am. This purpose is not given me by my parents or my surroundings. It is induced by some unknown factors. These factors make me a part of eternity.

Albert Einstein
The scientific organization and comprehensive exposition in accessible form of the Talmud has a twofold importance for us Jews. It is important in the first place that the high cultural values of the Talmud should not be lost to modern minds among the Jewish people nor to science, but should operate further as a living force. In the second place, The Talmud must be made an open book to the world, in order to cut the ground from under certain malevolent attacks, of anti-Semitic origin, which borrow countenance from the obscurity and inaccessibility of certain passages in the Talmud. To support this cultural work would thus mean an important achievement for the Jewish people.

Albert Einstein
We may assume the existence of an aether; only we must give up ascribing a definite state of motion to it, i. e. we must by abstraction take from it the last mechanical characteristic which Lorentz had still left it. … But this ether may not be thought of as endowed with the quality characteristic of ponderable inedia, as consisting of parts which may be tracked through time. The idea of motion may not be applied to it.

Albert Einstein
The state of mind which enables a man to do work of this kind is akin to that of the religious worshiper or the lover; the daily effort comes from no deliberate intention or program, but straight from the heart.

Albert Einstein
Dimensionless constants in the laws of nature, which from the purely logical point of view can just as well have different values, should not exist.

Albert Einstein
Subtle is the Lord, but malicious He is not.

Albert Einstein
It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropomorphic concept which I cannot take seriously. I feel also not able to imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere. My views are near to those of Spinoza: admiration for the beauty of and belief in the logical simplicity of the order and harmony which we can grasp humbly and only imperfectly. I believe that we have to content ourselves with our imperfect knowledge and understanding and treat values and moral obligations as a purely human problem—the most important of all human problems.

Albert Einstein
Men marry women with the hope they will never change. Women marry men with the hope they will change. Invariably they are both disappointed.

Albert Einstein
The idea of achieving security through national armament is, at the present state of military technique, a disastrous illusion.

Albert Einstein
We must be prepared to make the same heroic sacrifices for the cause of peace that we make ungrudgingly for the cause of war.

Albert Einstein
Science is international but its success is based on institutions, which are owned by nations. If therefore, we wish to promote culture we have to combine and to organize institutions with our own power and means.

Albert Einstein
Let every man judge according to his own standards, by what he has himself read, not by what others tell him.

Albert Einstein
I cannot conceive of anything after my physical death—perhaps it will end it all. The knowledge that I am now on this earth and a mysterious part of eternity is enough for me. My death will be an easy one, too, for since early youth I have always detached myself from family, friends, and surroundings. And should I live on, I have no fear of the next life. Whatever good I did helped to free me from myself. What a miserable creature man would be if he were good not for the sake of being good, but because religion told him that he would get a reward after this life, and that if he weren't good he'd be punished.

Albert Einstein
Don't think about why you question, simply don't stop questioning. Don't worry about what you can't answer, and don't try to explain what you can't know. Curiosity is its own reason. Aren't you in awe when you contemplate the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure behind reality? And this is the miracle of the human mind—to use its constructions, concepts, and formulas as tools to explain what man sees, feels and touches. Try to comprehend a little more each day. Have holy curiosity.

Albert Einstein
I know that it is a hopeless undertaking to debate about fundamental value judgements. For instance, if someone approves, as a goal, the extirpation of the human race from the earth, one cannot refute such a viewpoint on rational grounds. But if there is agreement on certain goals and values, one can argue rationally about the means by which these objectives may be obtained.

Albert Einstein
I believe that pipe smoking contributes to a somewhat calm and objective judgment in all human affairs.

Albert Einstein
Two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I am not yet completely sure about the universe.
Variant: Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.

Albert Einstein
The only progress I can see is progress in organization. The ordinary human being does not live long enough to draw any substantial benefit from his own experience. And no one, it seems, can benefit by the experiences of others. Being both a father and teacher, I know we can teach our children nothing. We can transmit to them neither our knowledge of life nor of mathematics. Each must learn its lesson anew.

Albert Einstein
As an eminent pioneer in the realm of high frequency currents... I congratulate you on the great successes of your life's work.

Albert Einstein
When I was young, all I wanted and expected from life was to sit quietly in some corner doing my work without the public paying attention to me. And now see what has become of me.

Albert Einstein