Albert Einstein

3/14/1879 - 4/18/1955

 "E=mc²" (Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared. The equation that opened the atomic age.)

"Most teachers waste their time by asking questions that are intended to discover what a pupil does not know, whereas the true art of questioning is to discover what the pupil does know or is capable of knowing."

"It is not so very important for a person to learn facts. For that he does not need 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."

"The crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship material success as a preparation for his future career."

"The aim of [education] must be the training of independently acting and thinking individuals who, however, see in the service to their community their highest life achievement."

"The school should always have as its aim that the young person leave it as a harmonious personality, not as a specialist."

"I am fascinated with Spinoza’s pantheism, but admire even more his contribution to modern thought because he is the first philosopher to deal with the soul and body as one, and not two separate things."

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

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

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

"A life directed chiefly toward the fulfillment of personal desires will sooner or later always lead to bitter disappointment."

"I am done fiddling. With the passage of years, it has become more and more unbearable for me to listen to my own playing." (1951) Einstein began to play the violin at the age of six; by 1950 he had given it up for the piano. He used to call his violin "Lina".

"He who cherishes the values of culture cannot fail to be a pacifist."

"The unleashing of the power of the atom bomb has changed everything except our mode of thinking, and thus we head toward unparalleled catastrophes."

"I made one mistake in my life – when I signed that letter to President Roosevelt advocating that the bomb should be built. But perhaps I can be forgiven for that because we all felt that there was a high probability that the Germans were working on this problem and they might succeed and use the bomb to become the master race."

"Since our inner experiences consist of reproductions and combinations of sensory impressions, the concept of a soul without a body seems to me to be empty and devoid of meaning."

"My concept of God comes from the deeply felt conviction of a superior intelligence that reveals itself in the knowable world. In common terms, one can describe it as "pantheistic" (Spinoza)."

"I cannot conceive of a personal God who would directly influence the actions of individuals. … My religiosity consists of a humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit that reveals itself in the little that we can comprehend of the knowable world. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God."

"Everything is determined … by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect as well as for the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust – we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper."

"The man who is thoroughly convinced of the universal operation of causation cannot for a moment entertain the idea of a being who interferes in the course of events. … He has no use for the religion of fear and equally little for social or moral religion. A God who rewards and punishes in inconceivable to him for the simple reason that a man’s actions are determined by necessity, external and internal, so that in God’s eyes he cannot be responsible, any more than an inanimate object is responsible for the motions it undergoes. … A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."

"It is very difficult to elucidate this [cosmic religious] feeling to anyone who is entirely without it. … The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man’s image; so that there can be no church whose central teachings are based on it. … In my view it is the most important function of art and science to awaken this feeling and keep it alive in those who are receptive to it."

"Philosophy is like a mother who gave birth to and endowed all the other sciences. Therefore one should not see her in her nakedness and poverty, but should hope, rather, that part of her Don Quixote ideal will live on in her children so that they do not sink into philistinism."

"Our actions should be based on the ever-present awareness that human beings in their thinking, feeling, and acting are not free but are just as causally bound as the stars in their motion."

"Everyone has been given an endowment that he must strive to develop in the service of mankind. This cannot be brought to completion through the threat of a God who will punish man for sin, but only by challenging the best in human nature."

"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." (Perhaps a play on Kant’s "Notion without intuition is empty, intuition without notion is blind.")

"In view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human mind, am able to recognize, there are yet people who say there is no God. But what makes me really angry is that they quote me for support of such views."

"Then there are the fanatical atheists whose intolerance is the same as that of the religious fanatics, and it springs from the same source. … They are creatures that cannot hear the music of the spheres."

"It is quite possible that we can do greater things than Jesus, for what is written in the Bible about him is poetically embellished."

"No idea is conceived in our mind independent of our five senses [i.e. no idea is divinely inspired]."

"It is this … symbolic content of the religious traditions which is likely to come into conflict with science. … Thus it is of vital importance for the preservation of true religion that such conflicts be avoided when they arise from subjects which, in fact, are not really essential for the pursuit of religious aims."

"I have found no better expression than "religious" for confidence in the rational nature of reality, insofar as it is accessible to human reason. Whenever this feeling is absent, science degenerates into uninspired empiricism."

"The idea of a personal God is quite alien to me and even seems naïve."

"To assume the existence of an imperceivable being … does not facilitate understanding the orderliness we find in the perceivable world."

"Thanks to my fortunate idea of introducing the relativity principle into physics, you (and others) now enormously overrate my scientific abilities, to the point where this makes me quite uncomfortable."

-To Arnold Sommerfeld, January 14^th, 1908.

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

"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."

"The mainspring of scientific thought is not an external goal toward which one must strive, but the pleasure of thinking."

"As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they certain, they do not refer to reality."

"The more one chases after quanta, the better they hide themselves."

"Quantum mechanics is very worthy of regard. But an inner voice tells me that this is not yet the right track. The theory yields much, but it hardly brings us closer to the Old One’s secrets. I, in any case, am convinced that He does not play dice."

"Those who thoughtlessly make use of the miracles of science and technology, without understanding more about them than a cow eating plants understands about botany, should be ashamed of themselves."

"Concern for man himself and his fate must always constitute the chief objective of all technological endeavors … in order that the creations of our mind shall be a blessing and not a curse to mankind. Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations."

"Scientific research is based on the assumption that all events, including the actions of mankind, are determined by the laws of nature."

"It is always delightful when a great and beautiful idea proves to be consonant with reality."

"A scientific person will never understand why he should believe opinions only because they are written in a certain book. [Furthermore], he will never believe that the results of his own attempts are final."

"The grand aim of science is to cover the greatest number of empirical facts by logical deduction from the smallest number of hypotheses or axioms."

"Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn a 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 anyone can we find joy in scientific endeavor."

"Development of Western science is based on two great achievements: the invention of the formal logical system (in Euclidean geometry) by the Greek philosophers, and the discovery of the possibility of finding out causal relationships by systematic experiment (during the Renaissance)."

"It is strange that science, which in the old days seemed harmless, should have evolved into a nightmare that causes everyone to tremble."

"It would be possible to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense. It would be a description without meaning – as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure."

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

"A woman should be able to choose to have an abortion up to a certain point in pregnancy."

"I am convinced that some political and social activities and practices of the Catholic organizations are detrimental and even dangerous for the community as a whole, here and everywhere. I mention here only the fight against birth control at a time when overpopulation in various countries has become a serious threat to the health of people and a grave obstacle to any attempt to organize peace on this planet."

"This country still has a heavy debt to discharge for all the troubles and disabilities it has laid on the [African American’s] shoulder….To [him] and his wonderful songs and choirs we owe the finest contribution in the realm of art which America has given the world."

"The causal way of looking at things always answers only the question, "Why?" but never "To what end?" … However, if someone asks, "For what purpose should we help one another, make beautiful music together, have inspired thoughts?" he would have to be told, "If you don’t feel the reasons, no one can explain them to you." Without this primary feeling we are nothing and had better not live at all."

"All my life I have been a friend of well-chosen, sober words and of concise presentation. Pompous phrases and words give me goose bumps whether they deal with the theory of relativity or with anything else."

"I no longer need to take part in the competition of the big brains. Participating [in the process] has always seemed to me to be an awful type of slavery no less evil than the passion for money or power."

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

"Without creative personalities able to think and judge independently, the upward development of society is as unthinkable as the development of the individual personality without the nourishing soil of the community."

"I think we have to safeguard ourselves against people who are a menace to others, quite apart from what may have motivated their deeds."

"The important think is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when one contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries to comprehend only a little of this mystery every day."

"I have reached the conviction that the abolition of the death penalty is desirable. Reasons: (1) Irreversability in the event of an error in justice; (2) detrimental moral influence on those who … have to carry out the procedure."

"I am not for punishment at all, but only for measures that save society and protect it. In principle, I would not be opposed to killing individuals who are worthless or dangerous in that sense. I am against it only because I do not trust people; i.e., the courts. What I value in life is quality rather than quantity."

"When I think of the most able students I have encountered in my teaching – I mean those who have distinguished themselves not only by skill but by independence of thought – I must confess that all have had a lively interest in epistemology. No one can deny that epistemologists have paved the road for progress [toward the theory of relativity]; Hume and Mach, at least, have helped me considerably, both directly and indirectly."

"Epistemology without contact with science becomes an empty scheme. Science without epistemology is – insofar as it is thinkable at all – primitive and muddled."

"Homosexuality should not be punishable except to protect children."

"The really valuable thing in the pageant of human life seems to me not the political state, but the creative, sentient individual, the personality; it alone creates the noble and the sublime, while the herd as such remains dull in thought and dull in feeling."

"Valuable achievement can sprout from human society only when it is sufficiently loosened to make possible the free development of an individual’s abilities."

"While it is true that an inherently free … person may be destroyed, such an individual can never be enslaved to used as a blind tool."

"It is important for the common good to foster individuality: for only when the individual can produce the new ideas which the community needs for its continuous improvement and requirements – indeed, to avoid sterility and petrification."

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

"All great achievements of science must start from intuitive knowledge, namely, in axioms, from which deductions are then made….Intuition is the necessary condition for the discovery of such axioms."

"Love brings much happiness, much more so than pining for someone brings pain."

"My parents … think of a wife as a man’s luxury that he can afford only when he is making a comfortable living. I have a low opinion of this view of the relationship between a man and wife, because it makes the wife and the prostitute distinguishable only insofar as the former is able to secure a lifelong contract from the man because of her favorable social rank."

"Marriage is the unsuccessful attempt to make something lasting out of an accident."

"Dear Posterity: If you have not become more just, more peaceful, and in general more sensible than we are (or were) today, then may the Devil take you! Respectfully expressing his opinion with this devout hope is (or was) your Albert Einstein. Princeton, May 4, 1936.

"Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws that cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase in crime in this country is closely connected with [prohibition]."

"Regarding sex education: no secrets!"

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

"By furthering logical thought and a logical attitude, science can diminish the amount of superstition in the world."

"I have no doubt that our thinking goes on for the most part without the use of signs (words), and, furthermore, largely unconsciously. For how, otherwise, should it happen that sometimes we "wonder" quite spontaneously about some experience? This "wondering" appears to occur when an experience comes into conflict with a world of concepts that is already sufficiently fixed within us…. The development of the world of thinking is in effect a continual flight from wonder."

"The most important kind of tolerance is tolerance of the individual by society and the state…. When the state becomes the dominant element and the individual is its weak-willed tool, then all the finer values are lost."

"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."

"It is difficult to say what truth is, but sometimes it is so easy to recognize a falsehood."

"I have always eaten animal flesh with a somewhat guilty conscience." (8/3/53)

"So I am living without fats, without meat, without fish, but am feeling quite well this way. It almost seems to me that man was not born to be a carnivore." (3/30/54)

"When you buy a piece of land to plant your cabbage and apples, you first have to drain it; that will kill all forms of animal and plant life that exist in that water. Later you would have to kill all the worms and caterpillars etc. that would eat your plants. If you must avoid all this killing on moral grounds, you will in the end have to kill yourself, all for the sake of leaving alive those creatures who have no such conception of higher moral principles." (12/57)

These next few are really unfortunate:

"We men are deplorable, dependent creatures. But compared with these women, every one of us is king, for he stands more or less on his own two feet, not constantly waiting for something outside of himself to cling to. They, however, always wait for someone to come along who will use them as he sees fit. If this does not happen, they simply fall to pieces."

"Very few women are creative. I would not send a daughter of mine to study physics. I’m glad my wife doesn’t know any science. My first wife did."

"As in all other fields, in science the way should be made easy for women. Yet it must not be taken amiss if I regard the possible results with a certain amount of scepticism. I am referring to certain restrictive parts of a woman’s constitution that were given her by Nature and which forbid us from applying the same standard of expectation to women as to men."

"O, youth: Do you know that yours is not the first generation to yearn for a life full of beauty and freedom? Do you know that all your ancestors have felt the same as you do – and fell victim to trouble and hatred? Do you know also that your fervent wishes can only find fulfillment if you succeed in attaining a love and an understanding of people, and animals, and plants, and stars, so that every joy becomes your joy and every pain your pain?"

Falsely attributed to Albert:

"We use only 10% of our brains." (This myth is repeated frequently and is false.)

Source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein, collected and edited by Alice Calaprice (Princeton University Press and The Hebrew University of Jerusalem; 2000) For more Einstein quotes, make sure to check this out!