Einstein Quotes

I want to know the thoughts of God. Everything else is just details.

The creative principle [of science] resides in mathematics.

He who has never been deceived by a lie does not know the meaning of bliss.

I have always loved solitude, a trait which tends to increase with age.

The State is made for Mankind, not mankind for the state

A problem defined, is a problem half solved.

If the bees disappear, man would have only four years of life left.

Unlimited competition leads to a huge waste of labor, and to that crippling of the social consciousness of individuals.

I owe as much of my success to an uncompromising obstinacy as to any original ideas.

The great need to grasp principles had caused me to spend most of my time on fruitless persuits.

The war is won, but the peace is not.

You believe in a god that plays dice; I believe in law & order.

Never let yourself be seduced by any problem, no matter how difficult.

I was just more stubborn and more passionate than most about physics.

It is best, it seems to me, to separate one's inner striving from one's trade as far as possible. It is not good when one's daily break is tied to God's special blessing.

The only way to escape the personal corruption of praise is to go on working. One is tempted to stop and listen to it. The only thing is to turn away and go on working. Work. There is nothing else.

Fantasie is belangrijker dan kennis, want kennis is begrensd.

The ancients knew something, which we seem to have forgotten.

One ought to be ashamed to make use of the wonders of science embodied in a radio set, the while appreciating them as little as a cow appreciates the botanic marvels in the plants she munches.

The most fundamental question we can ever ask ourselves is whether or not the universe we live in is friendly or hostile.

The State idea is not according to my heart. I cannot understand why it is needed. It is connected with narrow-minded and economic obstacles. I believe it is bad. I have always been against it.

Make a lot of walks to get healthy and don't read that much but save yourself some until you're grown up.

There has been an earth for a little more than a billion years. As for the question of the end of it I advise: Wait and see!

Who would have thought around 1900 that in fifty years time we would know so much more and understand so much less.

The idea of achieving security through national armament is, at the present state of military technique, a disastrous illusion.

On quantum theory I use up more brain grease (rough translation of German idiom) than on relativity.

Since others have explained my theory, I can no longer understand it myself.

To me it is enough to wonder at the secrets

I want to know all God's thoughts.

If I were wrong, wouldn't one be enough?

When I'm judging a theory, I ask myself whether, if I were God, I would have arranged the world in such a way.

Thinking like we (always) have is what got us where we are. It is not going to get us where we are going.

The Universe is a friendly place.

the contemplation of this world beckoned like a liberation

Every day, man is making bigger and better fool-proof things, and every day, nature is making bigger and better fools. So far, I think nature is winning.

If we have the courage to decide ourselves for peace we will have peace.

Toreador pants make your feet look big too

... on principle, it is quite wrong to try founding a theory on observable magnitudes alone. In reality the very opposite happens. It is the theory which decides what we can observe.

There is possibility in every difficulty.

Insofar as mathematics is true, it does not describe the real world. Insofar as it describes the real world, it is not true.

What interests me most is whether God could have made the world differently.

Check out not to become a man or woman of achievement, but instead seek to become a particular person of price.

Warfare cannot be humanized.

You cannot solve current problems with current thinking. Current problems are the result of current thinking.

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.

Unless the cause of peace based on law gathers behind it the force and zeal of a religion, it hardly can hope to succeed.

Dear Posterity, If you have not become more just, more peaceful, and in general more sensible... then may the Devil take you!

[Misquotation; not by Einstein.] If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker. [Apparently remorseful for his role in the development of the atom bomb.]

You accept the historical Jesus?

My scientific work is motivated by an irresistible longing to understand the secrets of nature not by other feelings.