Albert Einstein - Man Quotes

100 Sourced Quotes

View all Albert Einstein Quotes
It is also a natural thing for a serious young man that he should form for himself as precise an idea as possible of the goal of his desires.

Albert Einstein
All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man's life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom.

Albert Einstein
When a man after long years of searching chances upon a thought which discloses something of the beauty of this mysterious universe, he should not therefore be personally celebrated. He is already sufficiently paid by his experience of seeking and finding.

Albert Einstein
That this insecure and contradictory foundation was sufficient to enable a man of Bohr's unique instinct and sensitivity to discover the principal laws of the spectral lines and of the electron shell of the atoms, together with their significance for chemistry appeared to me as a miracle - and appears to me a miracle even today.

Albert Einstein
I believe that whoever tries to think things through honestly will soon recognize how unworthy and even fatal is the traditional bias against Negroes. What can the man of good will do to combat this deeply rooted prejudice? He must have the courage to set an example by words and deed, and must watch lest his children become influenced by racial bias.

Albert Einstein
It has often been said, and certainly not without justification, that the man of science is a poor philosopher.

Albert Einstein
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.

Albert Einstein
Man usually avoids attributing cleverness to somebody else—unless it is an enemy.

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

Albert Einstein
A happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwell too much on the future.

Albert Einstein
I recently discussed with an intelligent and well-disposed man the threat of another war, which in my opinion would seriously endanger the existence of mankind, and I remarked that only a supranational organization would offer protection from that danger. Thereupon my visitor, very calmly and coolly, said to me: "Why are you so deeply opposed to the disappearance of the human race?".

Albert Einstein
I believe the main task of the spirit is to free man from his ego.

Albert Einstein
Through the release of atomic energy, our generation has brought into the world the most revolutionary force since prehistoric man's discovery of fire. This basic force of the universe cannot be fitted into the outmoded concept of narrow nationalisms.

Albert Einstein
To be sure, it is not the fruits of scientific research that elevate a man and enrich his nature, but the urge to understand, the intellectual work, creative or receptive.

Albert Einstein
What a betrayal of man's dignity. He uses the highest gift, his mind, only ten percent, and his emotions and instincts ninety percent.

Albert Einstein
Our situation on this earth seems strange. Every one of us appears here involuntarily and uninvited for a short stay, without knowing the whys and the wherefore. In our daily lives we only feel that man is here for the sake of others, for those whom we love and for many other beings whose fate is connected with our own. I am often worried at the thought that my life is based to such a large extent on the work of my fellow human beings and I am aware of my great indebtedness to them.

Albert Einstein
I am not only a pacifist, but a militant pacifist. I am willing to fight for peace. … Is it not better for a man to die for a cause in which he believes, such as peace, than to suffer for a cause in which he does not believe, such as war?

Albert Einstein
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.

Albert Einstein
Just as with the man in the fairy tale who turned whatever he touched into gold, with me everything is turned into newspaper clamor.

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

Albert Einstein
Electromagnetic fields are not of the mind... Creation may be spiritual in origin, but that doesn't mean that everything created is spiritual. How can I explain such things to you? Let us accept the world is a mystery. Nature is neither solely material nor entirely spiritual. Man, too, is more than flesh and blood; otherwise, no religions would have been possible. Behind each cause is still another cause; the end or the beginning of all causes has yet to be found. Yet, only one thing must be remembered: there is no effect without a cause, and there is no lawlessness in creation.

Albert Einstein
Our age is proud of the progress it has made in man's intellectual development.

Albert Einstein
The physicists say that I am a mathematician, and the mathematicians say that I am a physicist. I am a completely isolated man and though everybody knows me, there are very few people who really know me.

Albert Einstein
I believe that I have cosmic religious feelings. I never could grasp how one could satisfy these feelings by praying to limited objects. The tree outside is life, a statue is dead. The whole of nature is life, and life, as I observe it, rejects a God resembling man. I like to experience the universe as one harmonious whole. Every cell has life. Matter, too, has life; it is energy solidified. Our bodies are like prisons, and I look forward to be free, but I don't speculate on what will happen to me. I live here now, and my responsibility is in this world now.... I deal with natural laws. This is my work here on earth.

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
The search for truth 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.

Albert Einstein
So I am living without fats, without meat, without fish, but am feeling quite well this way. It always seems to me that man was not born to be a carnivore.

Albert Einstein
Man owes his strength in the struggle for existence to the fact that he is a social animal.

Albert Einstein
I speak to everyone in the same way, whether he is the garbage man or the president of the university.

Albert Einstein
First you must have faith in an eternal world independent of you; then you must have faith in your ability to perceive it, and finally you must try to explain it by means of concepts or mathematical constructions. But don't always accept traditional concepts without reexamining them. Even overthrow my relativity theory, if you find a better one.... You must believe that the world was created as a unified whole which is comprehensible to man. Of course, it's going to take an infinitely long time to investigate this unified creation. But to me that is the highest and most sacred duty—unifying physics. Simplicity is the criterion of the universe.

Albert Einstein