"The world is a dangerous place. Not because of those who do terrible things. But because of those who let them do it."

"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."

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

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

"The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there's no risk of accident for someone who's dead."

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

 

"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."

"The release of atom 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."

Not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence."

"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."

 

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

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

"The only real valuable thing is intuition."

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

"Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character."

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

"The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility."

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

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

 

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

"The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education."

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

 

"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."

 

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

 

"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." 

 

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and 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."

 

"Gravitation can not be held responsible for people falling in love"

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

"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. "

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

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

"Where the world ceases to be the scene of our personal hopes and wishes, where we face it as free beings admiring, asking and observing, there we enter the realm of Art and Science"

 

"I have no particular talent. I am merely inquisitive."

"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. ... I get most joy in life out of music." 

"I want to know God's thoughts,..... the rest are details.."

"My life is a simple thing that would interest no one. It is a known fact that I was born and that is all that is necessary."

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

"When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge."

"True religion is real living; living with all one's soul, with all one's goodness and righteousness."

"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."

"I cannot believe that God would choose to play dice with the universe." or sometimes quoted as "God does not play dice with the universe."

"When the solution is simple, God is answering."

"I want to know God's thoughts,..... the rest are details.."

 

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

 

"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."

"Scientific research is based on the idea that everything that takes place is determined by laws of nature, and therefore this holds for the action of people. For this reason, a research scientist will hardly be inclined to believe that events could be influenced by a prayer, i.e. by a wish addressed to a Supernatural Being."

"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, b een placed in doubt by modern science.  My religiosity consists in a humble admiratation of the infinitely superior spirit that reveals itself in the little that we, with our we ak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality. Morality is of the highest importance -- but for us, not for God." 

 

"The finest emotion of which we are capable is the mystic emotion. Herein lies the germ of all art and all true science. Anyone to whom this feeling is alien, who is no longer capable of wonderment and lives in a state of fear is a dead man. To know that what is impenatrable for us really exists and manifests itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, whose gross forms alone are intelligible to our poor faculties - this knowledge, this feeling ... that is the core of the true religious sent iment. In this sense, and in this sense alone, I rank myself amoung profoundly religious men."

 

"Whoever undertakes to set himself up as judge in the field of truth and knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the Gods

"When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge."

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

"The only source of knowledge is experience"

"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."

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

"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 t o comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity."

"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."

"Intelligence makes clear to us the interrelationship of means and ends. But mere thinking cannot give us a sense of the ultimate and fundamental ends. To make clear these fundamental ends and valuations and to set them fast in the emotional life of the i ndividual, seems to me precisely the most important function which religion has to form in the social life of man."

 

"The devil has put a penalty on all things we enjoy in life. Either we suffer in health or we suffer in soul or we get fat."

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

"A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy."

"The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there's no risk of accident for someone who's dead."

 

"Without deep reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people ."

"A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of others ."

"Only a life lived for others is a life worth while ."

"Two things inspire me to awe -- the starry heavens above and the moral universe within ."

"It is a magnificent feeling to recognize the unity of complex phenomena which appear to be things quite apart from the direct visible truth."

"Watch the stars, and from them learn. To the Master's honor all must turn, each in its track, without a sound, forever tracing Newton's ground."
-- translation by Dave Fredrick

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

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and 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."

"The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible."

 

"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"

 

"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."

"Understanding of our fellow human beings...becomes fruitful only when it is sustained by sympathetic feelings in joy and sorrow."

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

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

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

 

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

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

"The minority, the ruling class at present, has the schools and press, usually the Church as well, under its thumb. This enables it to organize and sway the emotions of the masses, and make its tool of them."

"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."

"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."

 

"The real problem is in the hearts and minds of men. It is easier to denature plutonium than to denature the evil spirit of man."

 

"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."

"Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding."

"Never regard study as a duty, but as the enviable opportunity to learn to know the liberating influence of beauty in the realm of the spirit for your own personal joy and to the profit of the community to which your later work belongs."

"Teaching should be such that what is offered is perceived as a valuable gift and not as a hard duty ."

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

 

"The point is to develop the childlike inclination for play and the childlike desire for recognition and to guide the child over to important fields for society. Such a school demands from the teacher that he be a kind of artist in his province. "

"To me the worst thing seems to be a school principally to work with methods of fear, force and artificial authority. Such treatment destroys the sound sentiments, the sincerity and the self-confidence of pupils and produces a subservient subject."

"One should guard against preaching to young people success in the customary form as the main aim in life.The most important motive for work in school and in life is pleasure in work, pleasure in its result, and the knowledge of the value of the result to the community."

"With the affairs of active human beings it is different. Here knowledge of truth alone does not suffice; on the contrary this knowledge must continually be renewed by ceaseless effort, if it is not to be lost. It resembles a statue of marble which stan ds in the desert and is continuously threatened with burial by the shifting sands. The hands of science must ever be at work in order that the marble column continue everlastingly to shine in the sun. To those serving hands mine also belong."

"Gravitation can not be held responsible for people falling in love"

"Things should be made as simple as possible, but not any simpler."

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

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

"Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them."

"Strange is our Situation Here Upon Earth"

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

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

"An empty stomach is not a good political advisor."

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

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

"Force always attracts men of low morality, and I believe it to be an invariable rule that tyrants of genius are succeeded by scoundrels."

"If A equals success, then the formula is: A=X+Y+Z. X is work. Y is play. Z is keep your mouth shut."

"Try not to become a man of success but rather to become a man of value."

"Perfection of means and confusion of ends seem to characterize our age."

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

"The faster you go, the shorter you are."

"Nationalism is an infantile sickness. It is the measles of the human race."

"The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once."

"Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character."

"Perfections of mean and confusion of goals seem -in my opinion- to characterize our age.

"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."