Dr. Einstein Overheard

 

 

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

 

 

Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.

 

 

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

 

 

The only real valuable thing is intuition.

 

 

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

 

 

God is subtle but he is not malicious.

 

 

Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.

 

 

 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.

 

 

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

 

 

Science without religion is lame.

Religion without science is blind.

 

 

Anyone who has never made a mistake

has never tried anything new.

 

 

Great spirits have often encountered violent opposition

from weak minds.

 

 

Common sense is thecollection of prejudices

acquired by age eighteen.

 

 

Science is a wonderful thing

if one does not have to earn one's living at it.

 

 

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

 

 

The whole of science is nothing more

than a refinement of everyday thinking.

 

 

Peace cannot be kept by force.

It can only be achieved by understanding.

 

 

The significant problems we have cannot be solved

at the same level of thinking with which we created them.

Insanity:  Doing the same thing over and over again,

expecting different results.

 

  

The important thing is not to stop questioning.

Curiosity has its own reason for existing.

 

 

Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics.

I can assure you mine are still greater.

 

 

God does not care about our mathematical difficulties.

He integrates empirically.

 

 

If A is a success in life, then A equals x plus y plusz.

Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut.

 

 

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity;

and I'm not sure about the universe.

 

 

Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of
Truth and Knowledge
is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought,

but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.

 

 

In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep

one must, above all, be a sheep.

 

 

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?

 

 

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.

 

 

Great spirits have always found violent opposition

from mediocrities.

The latter cannot understand it

when a man does 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.

 

   

One of the strongest motives that lead men to art and science

is escape from everyday life

with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness,

from the fetters of one's own ever-shifting desires.

A finely tempered nature longs to escape

from the personal life

into the world of objective perception and thought.

 

 

A human being is a part of a whole ...

a part limited in time and space.

He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings

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.

Laws alone cannot secure freedom of expression;

in order that every man express his views without penalty

there must be a spirit of tolerance

in the entire population.

 

 

Not everything that counts can be counted,

and not everything that can be counted counts.

(Sign hanging in Einstein's office at Princeton)

 

 

Before God, we are equally wise

and equally foolish!

 

 

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

Truth is what stands the test of experience.

We still do not know one-thousandth of one percent

of what nature has revealed to us.

God reveals Himself in the orderly harmony of what exists.

 

 

We should take care not to make intellect our God.

It has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.

The value of a man is in what he gives,

not in what he is capable of receiving.

When you look at yourself from a universal standpoint,

something inside always reminds or informs you

that there are bigger and better things to worry about.

 

 

There are only two ways to live your life.

One is as though nothing is a miracle.

The other is as if everything is.