Albert Einstein Quotes

"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."

"Nothing happens until something moves."

"I advocate world government because I am convinced that there is no other possible way of eliminating the most terrible danger in which man has ever found himself. The objective of avoiding total destruction must have priority over any other objective. Ch. 27 A reply to the Soviet scientists (1948)"

"Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution."

"Ich glaube an Spinoza's Gott, der sich in der gesetzlichen Harmonie des Seienden offenbart, nicht an einen Gott, der sich mit Schicksalen und Handlungen der Menschen abgibt. I believe in Spinoza's God, Who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God Who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind."

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

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

"As far as I'm concerned I prefer silent vice to ostentatious virtue. Attributed to Einstein in Albert Einstein: A Documentary Biography by Carl Seelig (1956), p. 114. Einstein is said to have made this remark "when someone in his company grew angry about a mutual acquaintance's moral decline"."

"I am absolutely convinced that no wealth in the world can help humanity forward, even in the hands of the most devoted worker in this cause. The example of great and pure characters is the only thing that can produce fine ideas and noble deeds. Money only appeals to selfishness and always tempts its owners irresistibly to abuse it. Can anyone imagine Moses, Jesus, or Gandhi armed with the money-bags of Carnegie?"

"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. This variation was first promulgated in The New York Times in 1929 and attributed to Einstein's secretary: “When you sit with a nice girl for two hours you think it’s only a minute, but when you sit on a hot stove for a minute you think it’s two hours. That’s relativity.”[2]"

"Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing. Quoted in The Ultimate Quotable Einstein by Alice Calaprice (2010), p. 230"

"Response to atheist Alfred Kerr in the winter of 1927, who after deriding ideas of God and religion at a dinner party in the home of the publisher Samuel Fischer, had queried him "I hear that you are supposed to be deeply religious" as quoted in The Diary of a Cosmopolitan (1971) by H. G. Kessler"

"We Jews have been too adaptable. We have been too eager to sacrifice our idiosyncrasies for the sake of social conformity. ... Even in modern civilization, the Jew is most happy if he remains a Jew."

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

"My religiosity consists in a humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit that reveals itself in the little that we, with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality. Morality is of the highest importance — but for us, not for God. p. 66 of the 1981 edition"

"There is a quote attributed to Einstein that may have arisen as a paraphrase of the above quote, commonly given as "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler," "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler", or "Make things as simple as possible, but not simpler." See this article from the Quote Investigator for a discussion of where these later variants may have arisen."

"What is the meaning of human life, or of organic life altogether? To answer this question at all implies a religion. Is there any sense then, you ask, in putting it? I answer, the man who regards his own life and that of his fellow creatures as meaningless is not merely unfortunate but almost disqualified for life."

"Out of clutter, find simplicity. From discord, find harmony. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity."

"For the most part we humans live with the false impression of security and a feeling of being at home in a seemingly trustworthy physical and human environment. But when the expected course of everyday life is interrupted, we are like shipwrecked people on a miserable plank in the open sea, having forgotten where they came from and not knowing whither they are drifting. But once we fully accept this, life becomes easier and there is no longer any disappointment. Letter (26 April 1945), p. 72"

"If I had foreseen Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I would have torn up my formula in 1905. p. 112"

"Statements by Einstein from Essays Presented to Leo Baeck on the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday (1954), p. 26; Baeck's birthday was 23 May 1953; Einstein Archives 28-962. Some quotes are from The New Quotable Einstein (2005) edited by Alice Calaprice, pp. 120-121, others from Ideas and Opinions by Albert Einstein (1954), where they appear in the section "Aphorisms for Leo Baeck."

"If A is success in life, then A = x + y + z. Work is x, play is y and z is keeping your mouth shut. Said to Samuel J Woolf, Berlin, Summer 1929. Cited with additional notes in The Ultimate Quotable Einstein by Alice Calaprice and Freeman Dyson, Princeton UP (2010) p 230"

"Study and in general the pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives. Letter to Adrianna Enriques (October 1921), p. 83"

"The great moral teachers of humanity were, in a way, artistic geniuses in the art of living."

"variant translation from Ideas and Opinions: "In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must, above all, be a sheep."

"Über die spezielle und die allgemeine Relativitätstheorie (1920) Tr. Robert W. Lawson, Relativity: The Special and General Theory (1920) pp. 90-91."

"I am convinced that degeneracy follows every autocratic system of violence, for violence inevitably attracts moral inferiors."

"a Columbia Dictionary of Familiar Quotations (1997), 340. Variations exist due to different translations from the original German."

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

"If I would follow your advice and Jesus could perceive it, he, as a Jewish teacher, surely would not approve of such behavior. Reply to a Roman Catholic student urging him to pray to Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, and convert to Christianity."

"The ideals which have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth."

"Um ein tadelloses Mitglied einer Schafherde sein zu können, muß man vor allem ein Schaf sein. In order to be a perfect member of a flock of sheep, one has to be, foremost, a sheep."

"I have expressed an opinion on public issues whenever they appeared to me so bad and unfortunate that silence would have made me feel guilty of complicity. Address to the Chicago Decalogue Society (20 February 1954)"