Albert Einstein

(14 March 1879 - 18 April 1955) German-born Swiss .

Table of contents
1 Sourced
2 Attributed
3 External links

Sourced

  • E = mc²
  • The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with this.
    • My First Impression of the U.S.A. (1921)

  • Quantum mechanics is certainly imposing. But an inner voice tells me that it is not yet the real thing. The theory says a lot, but does not really bring us any closer to the secret of the Old One. I, at any rate, am convinced that He does not throw dice.
    • A letter to Max Born, December 12, 1926, according to Einstein: The Life and Times, p. 414. ISBN 0-380-44123-3. This quote is commonly paraphrased as "God does not play dice with the universe."

  • It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere.... Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; 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.
    • "Religion and Science", New York Times Magazine (9 November 1930); also used in the obituary in New York Times (19 April 1955)

  • Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.
    • The World as I see it (1934) [This attribution may be wrong]

  • I consider it important, indeed urgently necessary, for intellectual workers to get together, both to protect their own economic status and, also, generally speaking, to secure their influence in the political field.
    • In a comment explaining why he joined the American Federation of Teachers local number 552 as a charter member (1938)

  • But science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration toward truth and understanding. This source of feeling, however, springs from the sphere of religion. To this there also belongs the faith in the possibility that the regulations valid for the world of existence are rational, that is, comprehensible to reason. I cannot conceive of a genuine scientist without that profound faith. The situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind. Though I have asserted above that in truth a legitimate conflict between religion and science cannot exist, I must nevertheless qualify this assertion once again on an essential point, with reference to the actual content of historical religions. This qualification has to do with the concept of God. During the youthful period of mankind's spiritual evolution human fantasy created gods in man's own image, who, by the operations of their will were supposed to determine, or at any rate to influence, the phenomenal world. Man sought to alter the disposition of these gods in his own favor by means of magic and prayer. The idea of God in the religions taught at present is a sublimation of that old concept of the gods. Its anthropomorphic character is shown, for instance, by the fact that men appeal to the Divine Being in prayers and plead for the fulfillment of their wishes.
    • Science, Philosophy and Religion, A Symposium, published by the Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion in Their Relation to the Democratic Way of Life, Inc., New York (1941)

  • I believe that pipe smoking contributes to a somewhat calm and objective judgment in all human affairs.
    • Statement upon joining the Montreal Pipe Smokers Club. (1950)

  • It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.
    • Letter to an atheist (1954); Albert Einstein: The Human Side (1981) edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Princeton University Press

  • The idea of achieving security through national armament is, at the present state of military technique, a disastrous illusion.
    • Ideas and Opinions, Crown Publishers, (1954) p. 159

  • Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.
    • As quoted by Virgil Henshaw in Albert Einstein: Philosopher Scientist (1949)

  • Er ist eine Skala der Proportionen, die das Schlechte schwierig und das Gute leicht macht.
    • Translation: [The golden proportion] is a scale of proportions which makes the bad difficult [to produce] and the good easy.
    • French translation: Il s'agit d'une échelle de dimensions qui facilite la tâche du créateur; elle lui permet de réaliser facilement le juste et difficilement le faux.
      • In private letter sent to Le Corbusier in 1946 and quoted in Modulor 1953 pages 58-59

  • 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 to find out causal relationships by systematic experiment (during the Renaissance). In my opinion, one has not to be astonished that the Chinese sages have not made these steps. The astonishing thing is that these discoveries were made at all.
    • Quoted in Cleopatra's Nose, Essays on the Unexpected, Daniel J Boorstin (1995), New York: Vintage Books, p3).

  • The most fundamental question we can ever ask ourselves is whether or not the universe we live in is friendly or hostile.
  • 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.
    • As quoted by Steve Mirsky Scientific American (September 2002). Vol. 287, Iss. 3; pg. 102.

The World As I See It (1931)

Various translated editions have been published of the essay "Mein Weltbild": one compilation which includes it is Ideas and Opinions (1954)

  • 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.

  • How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people— first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy. A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving...

  • In human freedom in the philosophical sense I am definitely a disbeliever. Everybody acts not only under external compulsion but also in accordance with inner necessity. Schopenhauer's saying, that "a man can do as he will, but not will as he will," has been an inspiration to me since my youth up, and a continual consolation and unfailing well-spring of patience in the face of the hardships of life, my own and others'. This feeling mercifully mitigates the sense of responsibility which so easily becomes paralysing, and it prevents us from taking ourselves and other people too seriously; it conduces to a view of life in which humour, above all, has its due place.

  • I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves— this critical basis I call the ideal of a pigsty. The ideals that have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth. Without the sense of kinship with men of like mind, without the occupation with the objective world, the eternally unattainable in the field of art and scientific endeavors, life would have seemed empty to me. The trite objects of human efforts— possessions, outward success, luxury— have always seemed to me contemptible.

  • My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has always contrasted oddly with my pronounced lack of need for direct contact with other human beings and human communities.

  • I gang my own gait and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties I have never lost an obstinate sense of detachment, of the need for solitude—a feeling which increases with the years.
  • Variant translation: I am truly a 'lone traveler' and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties, I have never lost a sense of distance and a need for solitude...

  • My political ideal is democracy. Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized. It is an irony of fate that I myself have been the recipient of excessive admiration and reverence from my fellow-beings, through no fault, and no merit, of my own. The cause of this may well be the desire, unattainable for many, to understand the few ideas to which I have with my feeble powers attained through ceaseless struggle. I am quite aware that for any organization to reach its goals, one man must do the thinking and directing and generally bear the responsibility. But the led must not be coerced, they must be able to choose their leader.

  • An autocratic system of coercion, in my opinion, soon degenerates. For force always attracts men of low morality, and I believe it to be an invariable rule that tyrants of genius are succeeded by scoundrels. For this reason I have always been passionately opposed to systems such as we see in Italy and Russia to-day.
  • Variant translation: In my opinion, an autocratic system of coercion soon degenerates; force attracts men of low morality...

  • The really valuable thing in the pageant of human life seems to me not the 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.

  • This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of the herd nature, the military system, which I abhor. That a man can take pleasure in marching in formation to the strains of a band is enough to make me despise him. He has only been given his big brain by mistake; a backbone was all he needed. This plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed. Heroism by order, senseless violence, and all the pestilent nonsense that does by the name of patriotism—how I hate them! War seems to me a mean, contemptible thing: I would rather be hacked in pieces than take part in such an abominable business.

  • The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery— even if mixed with fear— that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds: it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity. In this sense, and only this sense, I am a deeply religious man.
    • Variant translation: The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. He who knows it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle. It was the experience of mystery—even if mixed with fear—that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which are only accessible to our reason in their most elementary forms—it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this [sense] alone, I am a deeply religious man.

  • I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the type of which we are conscious in ourselves. An individual who should survive his physical death is also beyond my comprehension, nor do I wish it otherwise; such notions are for the fears or absurd egoism of feeble souls.

  • I am satisfied with the mystery of life's eternity and with a knowledge, a sense, of the marvelous structure of existence— as well as the humble attempt to understand even a tiny portion of the Reason that manifests itself in nature.
    • Variant translation: Enough for me the mystery of the eternity of life, and the inkling of the marvellous structure of reality, together with the single-hearted endeavour to comprehend a portion, be it never so tiny, of the reason that manifests itself in nature.

Why Socialism? (1949)

Monthly Review New York (May 1949)

  • Modern anthropology has taught us, through comparative investigation of so-called primitive cultures, that the social behavior of human beings may differ greatly, depending upon prevailing cultural patterns and the types of organization which predominate in society. It is on this that those who are striving to improve the lot of man may ground their hopes: human beings are not condemned, because of their biological constitution, to annihilate each other or to be at the mercy of a cruel, self-inflicted fate.

  • The owner of the means of production is in a position to purchase the labor power of the worker. By using the means of production, the worker produces new goods which become the property of the capitalist. The essential point about this process is the relation between what the worker produces and what he is paid, both measured in terms of real value. In so far as the labor contract is free what the worker receives is determined not by the real value of the goods he produces, but by his minimum needs and by the capitalists' requirements for labor power in relation to the number of workers competing for jobs. It is important to understand that even in theory the payment of the worker is not determined by the value of his product.

  • I have now reached the point where I may indicate briefly what to me constitutes the essence of the crisis of our time. It concerns the relationship of the individual to society. The individual has become more conscious than ever of his dependence upon society. But he does not experience this dependence as a positive asset, as an organic tie, as a protective force, but rather as a threat to his natural rights, or even to his economic existence. Moreover, his position in society is such that the egotistical drives of his make-up are constantly being accentuated, while his social drives, which are by nature weaker, progressively deteriorate. All human beings, whatever their position in society, are suffering from this process of deterioration. Unknowingly prisoners of their own egotism, they feel insecure, lonely, and deprived of the naive, simple, and unsophisticated enjoyment of life. Man can find meaning in life, short and perilous as it is, only through devoting himself to society.

  • The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil. We see before us a huge community of producers the members of which are unceasingly striving to deprive each other of the fruits of their collective labor—not by force, but on the whole in faithful compliance with legally established rules.

  • I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.

  • Nevertheless, it is necessary to remember that a planned economy is not yet socialism. A planned economy as such may be accompanied by the complete enslavement of the individual. The achievement of socialism requires the solution of some extremely difficult socio-political problems: how is it possible, in view of the far-reaching centralization of political and economic power, to prevent bureaucracy from becoming all-powerful and overweening? How can the rights of the individual be protected and therewith a democratic counterweight to the power of bureaucracy be assured?

  • Clarity about the aims and problems of socialism is of greatest significance in our age of transition. Since, under present circumstances, free and unhindered discussion of these problems has come under a powerful taboo, I consider the foundation of this magazine to be an important public service.
    • This statement refers to the Monthly Review (New York) in which this essay was published.

Attributed

  • A human being is part of a whole, called by us the Universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

  • A person starts to live when he can live outside himself.

  • Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius— and a lot of courage— to move in the opposite direction.

  • Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.

  • As our circle of knowledge expands, so does the circumference of darkness surrounding it.

  • Before God we are all equally wise— and equally foolish.

  • Buddhism has the characteristics of what would be expected in a cosmic religion for the future: It transcends a personal God, avoids dogmas and theology; it covers both the natural and the spiritual, and it is based on a religious sense aspiring from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual, as a meaningful unity.

  • Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.

  • Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater.

  • Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school.

  • Equations are more important to me, because politics is for the present, but an equation is something for eternity.

  • Ethical axioms are found and tested not very differently from the axioms of science. Truth is what stands the test of experience.

  • Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler.
    • This is very similar to "Ockham's Razor", only it warns about too much simplicity.It is also similar to what has become known as the "K.I.S.S. method": Keep It Simple, S'tupid— but never over simplify.

  • Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.

  • Generations to come, it may be, will scarcely believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth.
    • (speaking of Mahatma Gandhi)

  • God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates empirically.

  • Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love.

  • Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence.

  • He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.

  • He who joyfully marches to music 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 fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, deplorable love-of-country stance, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.

  • I am convinced that He [God] does not play dice.

  • I came to America because of the great, great freedom which I heard existed in this country. I made a mistake in selecting America as a land of freedom, a mistake I cannot repair in the balance of my lifetime. (December 1947?)

  • I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own— a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotisms.

  • I could burn my fingers that I wrote that first letter to Roosevelt.
    • Comment after the , regarding his letter to warning of the possibility of the development of a .

  • I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.

  • I don't pretend to understand the universe— it's much bigger than I am.

  • I love to travel, but hate to arrive.

  • I maintain that the cosmic religious feeling is the strongest and noblest motive for scientific research.

  • I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.

  • I want to know God's thoughts; the rest are details.
    • Variant: 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.

  • If A is a success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut.
    • Alternative version: If A equals success, then the formula is: ; X is work, Y is play, and Z is keeping your mouth shut.

  • If my theory of relativity is proven correct, Germany will claim me as a German and France will say I am a man of the world. If it's proven wrong, France will say I am a German and Germany will say I am a Jew.
    • Alternative version: If relativity is proved right the Germans will call me a German, the Swiss will call me a Swiss citizen, and the French will call me a great scientist. If relativity is proved wrong the French will call me a Swiss, the Swiss will call me a German and the Germans will call me a Jew.

  • If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.

  • If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts.
    • (This seems a highly dubious statement for Einstein.)

  • If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

  • If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.

  • Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.

  • In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must, above all, be a sheep.

  • Innovation is not the product of logical thought, even though the final product is tied to a logical structure.

  • Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

  • It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.

  • It is harder to crack a prejudice than an atom.

  • It is the duty of every citizen according to his best capacities to give validity to his convictions in political affairs.

  • It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere.... Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; 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.

  • Laws alone can not secure freedom of expression; in order that every man present his views without penalty there must be spirit of tolerance in the entire population.

  • Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.

  • My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.

  • No, this trick won't work... How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love?

  • Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.
    • This was on a sign hanging in Einstein's office at Princeton; research should be able to reveal whether or not it originated with Einstein.

  • Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.

  • Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.

  • One of the strongest motives that lead men to art and science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness, from the fetters of one's own ever-shifting desires. A finely tempered nature longs to escape from the personal life into the world of objective perception and thought.

  • Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.

  • Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.

  • Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.

  • 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.

  • Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.

  • Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.

  • Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it.

  • Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing.

  • Subtle is the Lord, but malicious He is not. (Raffiniert ist der Herrgott, aber boshaft ist Er nicht.)

  • Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal.

  • The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.

  • The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility.

  • The hardest thing to understand in the world is the income tax.

  • 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. The trite subjects of human efforts, possessions, outward success, luxury have always seemed to me contemptible.

  • The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.

  • 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.
    • \Alternative version: The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mystical. It is the sower of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger . . . is as good as dead.

  • The most important human endeavor is the striving for morality in our actions. Our inner balance and even our very existence depend on it. Only morality in our actions can give beauty and dignity to life.

  • The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is at all comprehensible.

  • The only real valuable thing is intuition. The intellect has little to do on the road to discovery.

  • The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.
    • This seems that it may be a paraphrase a statement by Mark Twain - "I never let my schooling get in the way of my education".

  • The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them.

  • The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.

  • The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one.

  • The release of atomic power has changed everything except our way of thinking...the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker. ()
    • Variant: If I had only known, I would have been a locksmith.

  • The search for truth is more precious than its possession.

  • The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.

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

  • The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.

  • The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it.

  • 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.
  • Variant: There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is.

  • Too many of us look upon Americans as dollar chasers. This is a cruel libel, even if it is reiterated thoughtlessly by the Americans themselves.

  • Truth is what stands the test of experience.

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

  • We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.

  • Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.

  • What does a fish know about the water in which it swims all its life? (Memoirs?)

  • What really interests me is whether God had any choice in the creation of the world.

  • Yes, we have to divide up our time like that, between our politics and our equations. But to me our equations are far more important, for politics are only a matter of present concern. A mathematical equation stands forever.

  • You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.

  • You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat.

  • If I had to live my life over again, I would live it as a trader of goods.

  • If I give you a pfennig, you will be one pfennig richer and I'll be one pfennig poorer. But if I give you an idea, you will have a new idea, but I shall still have it, too.

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