He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.
— Albert Einstein
Concern for man and his fate must always form the chief interest of all technical endeavors. Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations.
I have just got a new theory of eternity.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.
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.
I think and think for months and years. Ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right.
The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one.
Morality is of the highest importance - but for us, not for God.
Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism - how passionately I hate them!
Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves.
It was the experience of mystery - even if mixed with fear - that engendered religion.
We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.
No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.
Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal.
Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.
Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.
There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle.
Most people say that it is the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are wrong: it is character.
The gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.
That deep emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God.
Confusion of goals and perfection of means seems, in my opinion, to characterize our age.
If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.
I do not believe in the God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil.
Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.
Small is the number of people who see with their eyes and think with their minds.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.
If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.
The hardest thing to understand in the world is the income tax.
I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.
If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?
Intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them.
It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.
I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity.
Human beings must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.
Anger dwells only in the bosom of fools.
The grand aim of all science is to cover the greatest number of empirical facts by logical deduction from the smallest number of hypotheses or axioms.
Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master. For this reason mastery demands all of a person.
I want to know all Gods thoughts; all the rest are just details.
I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination.
People love chopping wood. In this activity one immediately sees results.
Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.
I never think of the future - it comes soon enough.
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.
The process of scientific discovery is, in effect, a continual flight from wonder.
Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish.
Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either.
The only source of knowledge is experience.
Imagination is more important than knowledge.
Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.
