"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe."
"Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results."
"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."
"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."
"Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere."
"If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself."
"If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales."
"The difference between genius and stupidity is: genius has its limits."
"Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new."
"Creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."
"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."
"Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous."
"If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?"
"I speak to everyone in the same way, whether he is the garbage man or the president of the university."
"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."
"A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it."
"Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school."
"Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving."
"I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious."
"Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy."
"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds."
"Never memorize something that you can look up."
"Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves."
"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."
"Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love."
"If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music."
"The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking."
"A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling 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 to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."
"Try not to become a man of success. Rather become a man of value."
"The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious - the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science."
"The best way to cheer yourself is to cheer somebody else up."
"Everything must be made as simple as possible. But not simpler."
"Black holes are where God divided by zero."
"In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity."
"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
"If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?"
"Love is a better master than duty."
"You never fail until you stop trying."
"Creativity is intelligence having fun."
"What is right is not always popular and what is popular is not always right."
"When you trip over love, it is easy to get up. But when you fall in love, it is impossible to stand again."
"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."
"Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding."
"It is not that I'm so smart. But I stay with the questions much longer."
"Out of clutter, find simplicity."
"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."
"Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile."
"God does not play dice with the universe."
"A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy?"
"Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of truth."
"I never think of the future - it comes soon enough."
"I must be willing to give up what I am in order to become what I will be."
"The measure of intelligence is the ability to change."
"Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater."
"We dance for laughter, we dance for tears, we dance for madness, we dance for fears, we dance for hopes, we dance for screams, we are the dancers, we create the dreams."
"I'd rather be an optimist and a fool than a pessimist and right."
"Nothing happens until something moves."
"If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts."
"Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions."
"Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts."
"God did not create evil. Just as darkness is the absence of light, evil is the absence of God."
"Time is an illusion."
"It would be possible to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure."
"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war."
"It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity."
"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. "
"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."
"The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is at all comprehensible."
"Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better."
"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen."
"Even on the most solemn occasions I got away without wearing socks and hid that lack of civilization in high boots "
"A ship is always safe at the shore - but that is NOT what it is built for."
"Any fool can know. The point is to understand."
"Men marry women with the hope they will never change. Women marry men with the hope they will change. Invariably they are both disappointed."
"Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters."
"Genius is 1% talent and 99% percent hard work."
"You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created."
"God is subtle but he is not malicious."
"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."
"What a sad era when it is easier to smash an atom than a prejudice."
"When the solution is simple, God is answering."
"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."
"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."
"It is my view that the vegetarian manner of living, by its purely physical effect on the human temperament, would most beneficially influence the lot of mankind."
"Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them."
"The only real valuable thing is intuition."
"A person starts to live when he can live outside himself."
"I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity."
"Our task must be to free ourselves... by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and it's beauty."
"However rare true love maybe, it is less so than true friendship."
"It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry; for this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom. Without this it goes to wrack and ruin without fail."
"The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once."
"The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this."
"If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed."
"If I had an hour to solve a problem I'd spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions."
"Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at 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."
"I never made one of my discoveries through the process of rational thinking"
"If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it."
"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish."
"Somebody who only reads newspapers and at best books of contemporary authors looks to me like an extremely near-sighted person who scorns eyeglasses. He is completely dependent on the prejudices and fashions of his times, since he never gets to see or hear anything else."
"The only sure way to avoid making mistakes is to have no new ideas."
"I thought of that while riding my bicycle."
"The search for truth is more precious than its possession."
"Force always attracts men of low morality."
"The ideals which have always shone before me and filled me with joy are goodness, beauty, and truth."
"He who joyfully marches to music rank and file has already earned my contempt. He as been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice."
"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."
"What really interests me is whether God had any choice in the creation of the World."
"Only those who attempt the absurd can achieve the impossible."
"From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: that we are here for the sake of each other - above all for those upon whose smile and well-being our own happiness depends, and also for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy. Many times a day I realize how much my own outer and inner life is built upon the labors of my fellow men, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received."
"Imagination is the highest form of research."
"A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be."
"It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge."
"A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. So is a lot."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy?"
"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."
"We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library, whose walls are covered to the ceiling with books in many different languages. The child knows that someone must have written those books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the the languages in which they are written. The child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books, a mysterious order, which it does not comprehend but only dimly suspects."
"An empty stomach is not a good political adviser."
"The bigotry of the non-believer is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer."
"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."
"No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong."
"Past is dead<br />
Future is uncertain;<br />
Present is all you have,<br />
So eat, drink and live merry."
"The woman who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. The woman who walks alone is likely to find herself in places no one has ever been before."
"Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another."
"Life is a preparation for the future; and the best preparation for the future is to live as if there were none."
"In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not."
"Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social enviroment. Most people are incapable of forming such opinions."
"The Revolution introduced me to art, and in turn, art introduced me to the Revolution!"
"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?"
"It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder."
"Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labour in freedom."
"One cannot alter a condition with the same mind set that created it in the first place."
"What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism."
"If I could do it all again, I'd be a plumber."
"A perfection of means, and confusion of aims, seems to be our main problem."
"Creating a new theory is not like destroying an old barn and erecting a skyscraper in its place. It is rather like climbing a mountain, gaining new and wider views, discovering unexpected connections between our starting points and its rich environment. But the point from which we started out still exists and can be seen, although it appears smaller and forms a tiny part of our broad view gained by the mastery of the obstacles on our adventurous way up."
"We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality."
"The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge."
"Our separation from each other is an optical illusion."
Albert Einstein