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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.
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Everything
should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.
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The most incomprehensible thing about our universe is that it can be comprehended.
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The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility.
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I have deep faith that the principle of the universe will be beautiful and simple.
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I know little about nature and hardly anything about men.
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The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science.
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One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike and yet it is the most precious thing we have.
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A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. So is a lot.
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But in physics I soon learned to scent out the paths that led to the depths, and to disregard everything else, all the many things that clutter up the mind, and divert it from the essential. The hitch in this was, of course, the fact that one had to cram all this stuff into one's mind for the examination, whether one liked it or not.
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Newton, forgive me.
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Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal.
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Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge in the field of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.
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If I would be a young man again and had to decide how to make my living, I would not try to become a scientist or scholar or teacher. I would rather choose to be a plumber or a peddler in the hope to find that modest degree if independence still available under present circumstances.
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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.
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If my theory of relativity is proven correct, Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare that I am a citizen of the world. Should my theory prove untrue, France will say that I am a German and Germany will declare that I am a
Jew.
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The faster you go, the shorter you
are.
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The only reason for
time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.
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I believe my theory of relativity to be true. But it will only be proved for certain in 1981, when I am dead.
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If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker."
- Reflecting on his role in the development of the atom bomb.
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The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one.
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I don't know how the third world war will be fought, but I do know that the fourth one will be fought with sticks and stones.
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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
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Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater
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Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it
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You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother
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Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.
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The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking
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As far as I'm concerned, I prefer silent vice to ostentatious virtue
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I want to know God's thoughts.....the rest are
details.
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I have never belonged wholeheartedly to a country, a state, nor to a circle of friends, nor even to my own family.
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When I was still a rather precocious young man, I already realized most vividly the futility of the hopes and aspirations that most men pursue throughout their lives.
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Well-being and happiness never appeared to me as an absolute aim. I am even inclined to compare such moral aims to the ambitions of a pig.
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Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.
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Quantum mechanics is very impressive. But an inner voice tells me that it is not yet the real thing. The theory yields a lot, but it hardly brings us any closer to the secret of the Old One. In any case I am convinced that He doesn't play dice.
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Scientists were rated as great heretics by the church, but they were truly religious men because of their faith in the orderliness of the universe.
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Politics is more difficult than physics
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The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.
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The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.
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People like you and I, though mortal of course like everyone else, do not grow old no matter how long we live...[We] never cease to stand like curious children before the great mystery into which we were born.
in a letter to Otto Juliusburger
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The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind.
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It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity
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Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.
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I think and think for months and years, ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right.
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I cannot conceive of a personal God who would directly influence the actions of individuals, or would directly sit in judgment on creatures of his own creation. I cannot do this in spite of the fact that mechanistic causality has, to a certain extent, been placed in doubt by modern science. [He was speaking of Quantum Mechanics and the breaking down of determinism.] 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
The Human Side, 1954
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Teaching should be such that what is offered is perceived as a valuable gift and not as a hard duty
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Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.
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Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy.
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The pioneers of a warless world are the youth who refuse military service.
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The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.
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Those instrumental goods which should serve to maintain the life and health of all human beings should be produced by the least possible
labor of all.
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The search for truth is more precious than its possession
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Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.
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The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.
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I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.
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Example isn't another way to teach, it is the only way to teach.
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With fame I become more and more stupid, which of course is a very common phenomenon.
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I want to know God's thoughts...the rest are details.
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Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the life-long attempt to acquire it.
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Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.
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Isn't it strange that I who have written only unpopular books should be such a popular fellow?
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The value of a man resides in what he gives and not in what he is capable receiving.
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Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.
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Try not to be a person of success, but rather a person of virtue
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He who joyfully marches 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.
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Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
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Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius --- and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.
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Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is to not stop questioning.
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I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.
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The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.
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Perfection of means and confusion of ends seem to characterize our age.
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I have deep faith that the principle of the universe will be beautiful and simple.
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Truth is what stands the test of experience.
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The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.
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Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocre minds. The latter cannot understand it when a [person] does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses their intelligence.
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Subtle is the Lord, but malicious He is not.
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There remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion
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Human beings, vegetables, or comic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune intoned in the distance by an invisible player
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Do you believe in immortality? No, and one life is enough for me
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How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn;for what purpose we know not, though sometimes sense it. But we know from daily life that we exist for other people first of all for whose smiles and well-being our own happiness depends.
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I do not believe that the Good Lord plays dice
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When forced to summarize the general theory of relativity in one sentence: Time and space and gravitation have no separate existence from matter.
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We know nothing at all. All our knowledge is but the knowledge of schoolchildren. The real nature of things we shall never know
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You teach me baseball and I'll teach you relativity...No we must not You will learn about relativity faster than I learn baseball.
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For every one billion particles of antimatter there were one billion and one particles of matter. And when the mutual annihilation was complete, one billionth remained - and that's our present universe.
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Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving
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So long as there are men there will be wars
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Nationalism is an infantile
disease, the measles of mankind
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I believe in standardizing automobiles, not human beings
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To get to know a country, you must have direct contact with the earth. It's futile to gaze at the world through a car window
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I love to travel, But hate to arrive
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I hate crowds and making speeches. I hate facing cameras and having to answer to a crossfire of questions. Why popular fancy should seize upon me, a scientist, dealing in abstract things and happy if left alone, is a manifestation of mass psychology that is beyond me.
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When his wife asked him to change clothes to meet the German Ambassador: they want to see me, here I am. If they want to see my clothes, open my closet and show them my suits.
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Lasting harmony with a
woman (was) an undertaking in which I twice failed rather disgracefully
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A
finely tempered nature longs to escape from the personal life into the world of objective perception and thought.
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If A equals success, then the formula is: A = X + Y + Z, X is work. Y is play. Z is keep your mouth shut.
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The ideals that have lighted my way and time after time have give me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty and Truth.
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Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
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A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy?
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If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor
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Intellectuals solve problems; geniuses prevent them.
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It gives me great pleasure indeed to see the stubbornness of an incorrigible nonconformist warmly acclaimed
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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. THAT'S relativity
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Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.
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Setting an example is not the main means of influencing others; it is the only means
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When the solution is simple, God is answering.
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The hardest thing in the world to understand is income tax.
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The significant problems we face can not be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.
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I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.
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Joy in looking and comprehending is nature's most beautiful gift.
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It is high time that the ideal of success should be replaced by the ideal of service.
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The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained liberation from the self.
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The most aggravating thing about the younger generation is that I no longer belong to it.
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It is not by sitting still at a grand distance and calling the human race larvae that men are to be helped
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There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle The other is as though everything is a miracle.
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As punishment for my contempt for authority, Fate has made me an authority myself.
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I want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts; the rest are details.
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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.
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A human being is part of the whole called by us universe , a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty... We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.
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We have to do the best we can. This is our sacred human responsibility.
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Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.
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We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many different languages. The child knows someone must have written those books . It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see a universe marvelously arranges and obeying certain laws, but only dimly understand these laws. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations.
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Where there is love there is no question
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The value of a man resides in what he gives and not in what he is capable of receiving.
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The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them.
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Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who read too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.
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Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them.
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On the big Bang theory: "For every one billion particles of antimatter there were one billion and one particles of matter. And when the mutual annihilation was complete, one billionth remained - and that's our present universe."
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MacMillan has this particular quote simply as "God doesn't play dice." and notes that it is often quoted as doesn't play dice with the universe"
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Imagination is more important than knowledge.
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He who finds though that lets us penetrate even a little deeper into the eternal mystery of nature has been granted great grace. He who, in addition, experiences the recognition, sympathy, and help of the best minds of his times, had been given almost more happiness than one man can bear.
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Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.
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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.
THAT'S relativity."
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