Albert Einstein Thinking Quotations

We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.

The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them.

The development of general ability for independent thinking and judgment should always be placed foremost, not the acquisition of special knowledge.

We will never be able to solve the problems of tomorrow with the thinking of today

All the fifty years of conscious brooding have brought me no closer to answer the question, "What are light quanta?" Of course today every rascal thinks he knows the answer, but he is deluding himself.

[Newton wrote to Halley ... that he would not give Hooke any credit] That, alas, is vanity. You find it in so many scientists. You know, it has always hurt me to think that Galileo did not acknowledge the work of Kepler.

We come now to the question: what is a priori certain or necessary, respectively in geometry (doctrine of space) or its foundations? Formerly we thought everything; nowadays we think nothing. Already the distance-concept is logically arbitrary; there need be no things that correspond to it, even approximately.

Thinking is hard work; that's why so few do it.

All our thinking is of this nature, a free play with concepts.

The world will not evolve past its current state of crisis by using the same thinking that created the situation.

Out yonder there is this huge world, which exists independently of us human beings and which stands before us like a great, eternal riddle, at least partially accessible to our inspection and thinking

The splitting of the atom has changed everything except for how we think.

In scientific thinking are always present elements of poetry. Science and music requires a thought homogeneous.

The same thinking that has led you to where you are is not going to lead you to where you want to go.

The aim (of education) must be the training of independently acting and thinking individuals who, however, see in the service to the community their highest life problem.

If I had an hour to solve a problem I'd spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.

Smoke like a chimney, work like a horse, eat without thinking, go for a walk only in really pleasant company.

The world we have created is a product of our thinking.

Man like every other animal is by nature indolent. If nothing spurs him on, then he will hardly think, and will behave from habit like an automaton.

The harmony of natural law reveals an Intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection.

Remember today, for it is the beginning of always. Today marks the start of a brave new future filled with all your dreams can hold. Think truly to the future and make those dreams come true.

Scientific research can reduce superstition by encouraging people to think and view things in terms of cause and effect.

I see in Nature a magnificent structure... that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility...

It is quite clear to me that the religious paradise of youth, which [I] lost, was a first attempt to free myself from the chains of the 'merely personal,' from an existence which is dominated by wishes, hopes, and primitive feelings.

It is impossible to get out of a problem by using the same kind of thinking that it took to get into it.

The world we have made as a result of the level of thinking we have done thus far creates problems that we cannot solve at the same level at which we have created them.... We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humankind is to survive.

Pure logical thinking cannot yield us any knowledge of the empirical world. All knowledge of reality starts from experience and ends in it.

The release of atomic 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. (1945)

Everything has changed, except our way of thinking.

If I had my life to live over again, I would elect to be a trader of goods rather than a student of science. I think barter is a noble thing.

Everybody should be ashamed who uses the wonders of science and engineering without thinking and having mentally realized not more of it than a cow realizes of the botany of the plants which it eats with pleasure.

I sometimes ask myself how it came about that I was the one to develop the theory of relativity. The reason, I think, is that a normal adult never stops to think about problems of space and time. These are things which he has thought about as a child. Bu t my intellectual development was retarded,as a result of which I began to wonder about space and time only when I had already grown up.

I think that a particle must have a separate reality independent of the measurements. That is an electron has spin, location and so forth even when it is not being measured. I like to think that the moon is there even if I am not looking at it.

You can never solve a problem with the same kind of thinking that created the problem in the first place.

The problems of today can only be solved at a higher level of thinking than that which created them

All I want to do is learn to think like God. All the rest is just details.

Anyone who thinks science is trying to make human life easier or more pleasant is utterly mistaken.

The thinking it took to get us into this mess is not the same thinking that is going to get us out of it.

At least once a day, allow yourself the freedom to think and dream for yourself.

You can't solve your problems by using the same thinking that got you into those problems in the first place.

Problems cannot be solved by thinking within the framework in which the problems were created.

Time and space are modes by which we think and not conditions in which we live.

All conditions and all circumstances in our lives are a result of a certain level of thinking. If we want to change the conditions and circumstances, we have to change the level of thinking that is responsible for it.

I do not believe in the God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil. My God created laws that take care of that. His universe is not ruled by wishful thinking, but by immutable laws.

Paper is to write things down that we need to remember. Our brains are used to think.

Creativity is seeing what others see and thinking what no one else has ever thought.

The value of a college education is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think

We are part of the whole which we call the universe, but it is an optical delusion of our mind that we think we are separate. This separateness is like a prison for us. Our job is to widen the circle of our compassion so we feel connected with all people and situations.

Genius abhors consensus because when consensus is reached, thinking stops. Stop nodding your head.

I think 99 times and find nothing. I stop thinking, swim in the silence, and the truth comes to me.

For me a simple message, to think and act with courage, independence and imagination.

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 will not solve the problems of the world from the same level of thinking we were at when we created them. More than anything else, this new century demands new thinking: We must change our materially based analyses of the world around us to include broader, more multidimensional perspectives.

We cannot get to where we dream of being tomorrow unless we change our thinking today.

The thinking that got us to where we are is not the thinking that will get us to where we want to be.

The world we have created is a product of our thinking; it cannot be changed without changing our thinking. If we want to change the world we have to change our thinking...no problem can be solved from the same consciousness that created it. We must learn to see the world anew.

The formulation of the problem is often more essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skill.

Don't think about why you question, simply don't stop questioning. Don't worry about what you can't answer, and don't try to explain what you can't know. Curiosity is its own reason. Aren't you in awe when you contemplate the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure behind reality? And this is the miracle of the human mind-to use its constructions, concepts, and formulas as tools to explain what man sees, feels and touches. Try to comprehend a little more each day. Have holy curiosity.

Human beings, in their thinking, feeling and acting are not free agents but are as causally bound as the stars in their motion.

The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything except our thinking. Thus, we are drifting toward catastrophe beyond conception. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.

To be free means to be independent, not to be influenced by what others think and say.

Working on the final formulation of technological patents was a veritable blessing for me. It enforced many-sided thinking and also provided important stimuli to physical thought. [Academia] places a young person under a kind of compulsion to produce impressive quantities of scientific publications; a temptation to superficiality.

Often in evolutionary processes a species must adapt to new conditions in order to survive. Today the atomic bomb has altered profoundly the nature of the world as we know it, and the human race consequently finds itself in a new habitat to which it must adapt its thinking.

If the believers of the present-day religions would earnestly try to think and act in the spirit of the founders of these religions then no hostility on the basis of religion would exist among the followers of the different faiths. Even the conflicts and the realm of religion would be exposed as insignificant.

The same thinking and actions that created our problems cannot be used to solve them.

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.

Thinking is to man what flying is to birds. Don’t follow the example of a chicken when you could be a lark.

If we think of the field as being removed, there is no 'space' which remains, since space does not have an independent existence.

No one must think that Newton’s great creation can be overthrown in any real sense by this [Theory of Relativity] or by any other theory. His clear and wide ideas will for ever retain their significance as the foundation on which our modern conceptions of physics have been built.

Creativity is one of those hypnotic words which are prone to cast a spell upon our understanding and dissolve our thinking into haze.

The gravity is the first thing which you don't think

We are boxed in by the boundary conditions of our thinking

There is no scientific antidote, only education. You've got to change the way people think. I am not interested in disarmament talks between nations . . . What I want to do is to disarm the mind. After that, everything else will automatically follow. The ultimate weapon for such mental disarmament is international education.

When I was a fairly precocious young man I became thoroughly impressed with the futility of the hopes and strivings that chase most men restlessly through life. Moreover, I soon discovered the cruelty of that chase, which in those years was much more carefully covered up by hypocrisy and glittering words than is the case today. By the mere existence of his stomach everyone was condemned to participate in that chase. The stomach might well be satisfied by such participation, but not man insofar as he is a thinking and feeling being.

Mere thinking cannot reveal to us the highest purpose.

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

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

When the number of factors coming into play in a phenomenological complex is too large scientific method in most cases fails. One need only think of the weather, in which case the prediction even for a few days ahead is impossible. Nevertheless, no one doubts that we are confronted with a causal connection whose causal components are in the main known to us. Occurrences in this domain are beyond the reach of exact prediction because of the variety of factors in operation, not because of any lack of order in nature.

Figuring out how to think about the problem.

One cannot deal with a problem with the same thinking that creates it.

No scientist thinks in formulae.

You think you have troubles with mathematics . . . I assure you mine are still bigger.

Convictions can best be supported with experience and clear thinking.

The essentials of being a person of my type lies precisely in what they think and how they think, not in what they do. Your thoughts shape you.

I rarely think in words at all.

During the last century, and part of the one before, it was widely held that there was an unreconcilable conflict between knowledge and belief. The opinion prevailed amoung advanced minds that it was time that belief should be replaced increasingly by knowledge; belief that did not itself rest on knowledge was superstition, and as such had to be opposed. According to this conception, the sole function of education was to open the way to thinking and knowing, and the school, as the outstanding organ for the people's education, must serve that end exclusively.

About God, I cannot accept any concept based on the authority of the Church... As long as I can remember. I have resented mass indoctrination. I cannot prove to you there is no personal God, but if I were to speak of him, I would be a liar. I do not believe in the God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil. His universe is not ruled by wishful thinking, but by immutable laws

What is essential in the life of a man of my kind is what he thinks and how he thinks, and not what he does or suffers.

Without creative, independently thinking and judging personalities the upward development of society is as unthinkable as the development of the individual personality without the nourishing soil of the community.

I very rarely think in words at all. A thought comes, and I may try to express in words afterwards.

I think we have to safeguard ourselves against people who are a menace to others, quite apart from what may have motivated their deeds.

There lies the weaknesss of positivists and professional atheists who are elated because they feel that they have not only successfully rid the world of gods but "bared the miracles." (That is, explained the miracles. - ed.) Oddly enough, we must be satisfied to acknowledge the "miracle" without there being any legitimate way for us to approach it . I am forced to add that just to keep you from thinking that -weakened by age-I have fallen prey to the clergy ...

If this being is omnipotent, then every occurrence, including every human action, every human thought, and every human feeling and aspiration is also His work; how is it possible to think of holding men responsible for their deeds and thoughts before such an almighty Being? In giving out punishment and rewards He would to a certain extent be passing judgment on Himself. How can this be combined with the goodness and righteousness ascribed to Him?

I like to think the moon is there even if I am not looking at it.

As to science, we may well define it for our purpose as "methodical thinking directed toward finding regulative connections between our sensual experiences".

The world we have made is a result of the level of thinking we have done thus far.

I want to know what God thinks. The rest are details.

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

You can't solve problems with the same thinking that caused them.

[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.

When I think of the most able students I have encountered in my teaching - I mean those who have distinguished themselves not only by skill but by independence of thought - then I must confess that all have had a lively interest in epistemology.