Top 1964 Quotes & Sayings by Albert Einstein - Page 33

...and knowledge is one of the finest attributes of man - though often it is most loudly voiced by those who strive for it the least.

Since I have introduced this term I had always a bad conscience. . . . I cannot help to feel it strongly and I am unable to believe that such an ugly thing should be realized in nature.

It is little short of a miracle that modern methods of instruction have not already completely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry.... I believe that one could even deprive a healthy beast of prey of its voraciousness if one could force it with a whip to eat continuously whether it were hungry or not.

I have remained a simple fellow who asks nothing of the world; only my youth is gone - the enchanting youth that forever walks on air.

Since that deluge of newspaper articles I have been so flooded with questions, invitations, suggestions, that I keep dreaming I am roasting in Hell, and the mailman is the devil eternally yelling at me, showering me with more bundles of letters at my head because I have not answered the old ones.

Unless Americans come to realize that they are not stronger in the world because they have the bomb but weaker because of their vulnerability to atomic attack, they are not likely to conduct their policy at Lake Success [the United Nations] or in their relations with Russia in a spirit that furthers the arrival at an understanding.

As soon as science has emerged from its initial stages, theoretical advances are no longer achieved merely by a process of arrangement. Guided by empirical data, the investigator rather develops a system of thought which, in general, is built up logically from a small number of fundamental assumptions, the so-called axioms. We call such a system of thought a theory. The theory finds the justification for its existence in the fact that it correlates a large number of single observations, and it is just here that the 'truth' of the theory lies.

Quantum mechanics is certainly imposing. But an inner voice tells me that this is not yet the real thing. The theory says a lot, but does not bring us any closer to the secrets of the "Old One." I, at any rate, am convinced that He is not playing at dice.

Whatever your problems in math are, I assure mine are greater.

If everybody lived as I do, surely the writing of romance novels would never have come into being.

The work on satisfactory formulation of technical patents was a true blessing for me. It compelled me to be many-sided in thought, and also offered important stimulation for thought about physics. Following a practical profession is a blessing for people of my type. Because the academic career puts a young person in a sort of compulsory situation to produce scientific papers in impressive quantity, a temptation to superficiality arises that only strong characters are able to resist.

[Freud's] sense of reality is less clouded by wishful thinking than is the case with other people and [he combines] the qualities of critical judgment, earnestness and responsibility.

What lead me more or less directly to the special theory of relativity was the conviction that the electromotive force acting on a body in motion in a magnetic field was nothing else but an electric field.

It has often been said, and certainly not without justification, that the man of science is a poor philosopher.

[Mystery] is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science.

You are the only person I know who has the same attitude towards physics as I have: belief in the comprehension of reality through something basically simple and unified... It seems hard to sneak a look at God's cards. But that He plays dice and uses 'telepathic' methods... is something that I cannot believe for a single moment.

When a man points a finger at someone else, he should remember that three of his fingers are pointing at himself. Do not worry about your difficulties in mathematics; I can assure you that mine are still greater.

With me every peep becomes a trumpet solo.

One is born into a herd of buffaloes and must be glad if one is not trampled under foot before one's time.

For an idea which, at first, does not seem absurd, there is no hope.

It is the same with people as it is with riding a bike. Only when moving can one comfortably maintain one's balance.

The only rational way of educating is to be an example. If one can't help it, a warning example.

I know that the most joy in my life has come to me from my violin.

Agreements about what is good or not, are usually not worth much. It is very much like art, is it not an art to lead a good life?

I like the Swiss because by and large they are more humane than the other people aming whom I have lived.

It takes a different kind of thinking to solve a problem than the kind of thinking which produced the problem.

Only in mathematics and physics was I, through self-study, far beyond the school curriculum, and also with regard to philosophy as it was taught in the school curriculum.

I must seem like an ostrich who forever burries its head in the relativistic sands in order not to face the evil quanta.

He who finds though that lets us penetrate even a little deeper into the eternal mystery of nature has been granted great grace. He who, in addition, experiences the recognition, sympathy, and help of the best minds of his times, had been given almost more happiness than one man can bear.

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 and gaining new and wider views.

One can only continue to expect to be read if one omits everything that is unimportant.

Give back to the world at least what you've received.

The bitter and the sweet come from the outside, the hard from within, from one's own efforts.

It is true that the grasping of truth is not possible without empirical basis. However, the deeper we penetrate and the more extensive and embracing our theories become the less empirical knowledge is needed to determine those theories.

I hate crowds and making speeches. I hate facing cameras and having to answer to a crossfire of questions. Why popular fancy should seize upon me, a scientist, dealing in abstract things and happy if left alone, is a manifestation of mass psychology that is beyond me.

The Prussian Academy of Sciences is a fast-track academic institute that requires a proactive, hands-on-type individual to overthrow the Newtonian conception of the universe. The successful candidate will have an excellent command of mass, energy, space, time and some maths. Bonus paid upon completion of proofs

O, Youth: Do you know that yours is not the first generation to yearn for a life full of beauty and freedom?

I rarely think in words at all.

Everything has changed except the way man thinks (when the hydrogen bomb was exploded)

The rest of my life (as a 39 year old) I want to reflect on what life is.

Discussion and argument are essential parts of science; the greatest talent is the ability to strip a theory until the simple basic idea emerges with clarity.

Except in mathematics, the shortest distance between point A and point B is seldom a straight line. I don't believe in mathematics.

On the left-hand side of the field equation we may add the fundamental tensor guv, multiplied by a universal constant, -?, at present unknown, without destroying the general covariance.

My opinion about Miller's experiments is the following. ... Should the positive result be confirmed, then the special theory of relativity and with it the general theory of relativity, in its current form, would be invalid. Experimentum summus judex. Only the equivalence of inertia and gravitation would remain, however, they would have to lead to a significantly different theory.