ALBERT EINSTEIN

There are two areas of vastness. One is outer space, and the other is the stupidity of man.

Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts. (Sign hanging in Einstein's office at Princeton)

The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious - the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true 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.

It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.

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

I assert that the cosmic religious experience is the strongest and the noblest driving force behind scientific research.

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

What really interests me is whether God had any choice in the creation of the world.

The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge.

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

If my theory of relativity is proven correct, Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare that I am a citizen of the world. Should my theory prove untrue, France will say that I am a German and Germany will declare that I am a Jew.

As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.

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

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

[When asked to describe radio] You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat.

A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeeded be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.

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

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.

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 minds.

That deep emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God.

When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute—and it’s longer than any hour. That’s relativity.

God does not play dice with the universe.

Return to Quotes