Inspirational Albert Einstein Quotes

All these primary impulses, not easily described in words, are the springs of man's actions.

An empty stomach is not a good political adviser.

Anger dwells only in the bosom of fools.

Any 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.

Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves.

Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.

Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either.

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

As far as I'm concerned, I prefer silent vice to ostentatious virtue.

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.

Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish.

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

Concern for man and his fate must always form the chief interest of all technical endeavours. Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations.

Confusion of goals and perfection of means seems, in my opinion, to characterize our age.

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

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

Everyone should be respected as an individual, but no one idolized.

Everything should be as simple as it is, but not simpler.

Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted.

Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.

Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.

Force always attracts men of low morality.

God always takes the simplest way.

God does not play dice.

God may be subtle, but he isn't plain mean.

Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.

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 suffice.

Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism - how passionately I hate them!

Human beings must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.

I am a deeply religious nonbeliever - this is a somewhat new kind of religion.

I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination.

I am not only a pacifist but a militant pacifist. I am willing to fight for peace. Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war.

I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for everyone, best both for the body and the mind.

I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation and is but a reflection of human frailty.

I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it.

I do not believe in the God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil.

I do not believe that civilization will be wiped out in a war fought with the atomic bomb. Perhaps two-thirds of the people of the earth will be killed.

I have just got a new theory of eternity.

I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.

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

I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity.

I never think of the future - it comes soon enough.

I shall never believe that God plays dice with the world.

I think and think for months and years. Ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right.

I used to go away for weeks in a state of confusion.

I want to know all Gods thoughts; all the rest are just details.

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.

If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?

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

If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.

Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions.

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

In matters of truth and justice, there is no difference between large and small problems, for issues concerning the treatment of people are all the same.

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

Information is not knowledge.

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

Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death.

Intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them.

Isn't it strange that I who have written only unpopular books should be such a popular fellow?

It gives me great pleasure indeed to see the stubbornness of an incorrigible nonconformist warmly acclaimed.

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

It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.

It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.

It is only to the individual that a soul is given.

It is strange to be known so universally and yet to be so lonely.

It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.

It should be possible to explain the laws of physics to a barmaid.

It stands to the everlasting credit of science that by acting on the human mind it has overcome man's insecurity before himself and before nature.

It was the experience of mystery - even if mixed with fear - that engendered religion.

It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer.

Joy in looking and comprehending is nature's most beautiful gift.

Knowledge of what is does not open the door directly to what should be.

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.

Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized.

Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.

Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.

Love is a better teacher than duty.

Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.

Memory is deceptive because it is colored by today's events.

Morality is of the highest importance - but for us, not for God.

Most of the fundamental ideas of science are essentially simple, and may, as a rule, be expressed in a language comprehensible to everyone.

Most people say that is it is the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are wrong: it is character.

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.

Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.

Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.

Never lose a holy curiosity.

No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.

No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.

Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.

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. And what a person thinks on his own without being stimulated by the thoughts and experiences of other people is even in the best case rather paltry and monotonous.

There are only a few enlightened people with a lucid mind and style and with good taste within a century. What has been preserved of their work belongs among the most precious possessions of mankind. We owe it to a few writers of antiquity (Plato, Aristotle, etc.) that the people in the Middle Ages could slowly extricate themselves from the superstitions and ignorance that had darkened life for more than half a millennium. Nothing is more needed to overcome the modernist's snobbishness. -Albert Einstein, 1954.

The free, unhampered exchange of ideas and scientific conclusions is necessary for the sound development of science, as it is in all spheres of cultural life. - Albert Einstein, 1952

Knowledge must continually be renewed by ceaseless effort, if it is not to be lost. It resembles a statue of marble which stands in the desert and is continually threatened with burial by the shifting sand. The hands of service must ever be at work, in order that the marble continue to lastingly shine in the sun. To these serving hands mine shall also belong. -Albert Einstein, 1950.

When, after several hours reading, I came to myself again, I asked myself what it was that had so fascinated me. The answer is simple. The results were not presented as ready-made, but scientific curiosity was first aroused by presenting contrasting possibilities of conceiving matter. Only then the attempt was made to clarify the issue by thorough argument. The intellectual honesty of the author makes us share the inner struggle in his mind. It is this which is the mark of the born teacher. Knowledge exists in two forms - lifeless, stored in books, and alive, in the consciousness of men. The second form of existence is after all the essential one; the first, indispensable as it may be, occupies only an inferior position. Albert Einstein, 1954.

My dear children: I rejoice to see you before me today, happy youth of a sunny and fortunate land. Bear in mind that the wonderful things that you learn in your schools are the work of many generations, produced by enthusiastic effort and infinite labor in every country of the world. All this is put into your hands as your inheritance in order that you may receive it, honor it, and add to it, and one day faithfully hand it on to your children. Thus do we mortals achieve immortality in the permanent things which we create in common. If you always keep that in mind you will find meaning in life and work and acquire the right attitude towards other nations and ages. - Albert Einstein 1934.

Numerous are the academic chairs, but rare are wise and noble teachers. Numerous and large are the lecture halls, but far from numerous the young people who genuinely thirst for truth and justice. Numerous are the wares that nature produces by the dozen, but her choice products are few.

We all know that, so why complain? Was it not always thus and will it not always thus remain? Certainly, and one must take what nature gives as one finds it. But there is also such a thing as a spirit of the times, an attitude of mind characteristic of a particular generation, which is passed on from individual to individual and gives its distinctive mark to a society. Each of us has to his little bit toward transforming this spirit of the times. - Albert Einstein, 1954.

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.

The satisfaction of physical needs is indeed the indispensable precondition of a satisfactory existence, but in itself it is not enough. In order to be content, men must also have the possibility of developing their intellectual and artistic powers to whatever extent accords with their personal characteristics and abilities.

The first of these two goals requires the promotion of all knowledge relating to the laws of nature and the laws of social processes, that is, the promotion of all scientific endeavors. For scientific endeavor is a natural whole, the parts of which mutually support one another in a way which, to be sure, no one can anticipate. - Albert Einstein, 1940.

The development of science and of the creative activities of the spirit in general requires still another kind of freedom, which may be characterized as inward freedom. It is this freedom of spirit which consists in the independence of thought from the restrictions of authoritarian and social prejudices as well as from unphilosophical routinizing and habit in general. This inward freedom is an infrequent gift of nature and a worthy objective for the individual.

Schools may favor such freedom by encouraging independent thought. Only if outward and inner freedom are constantly and consciously pursued is there a possibility of spiritual development and perfection and thus of improving man's outward and inner life. - Albert Einstein, 1940.

In my book,Overcoming Life's Challenges I candidly discuss how I overcame a troubled childhood, alcoholism, an eating disorder, bankruptcy and numerous health issues to find love, financial success and physical well-being. I talk about how I have taken the journey out of the darkness and into the light.

Leave Albert Einstein Quotes and Return to Home Page