Albert Einstein Per Quotations

But the personality that finally emerges is largely formed by the environment in which a man happens to find himself during his development, by the structure of the society in which he grows up, by the tradition of that society, and by its appraisal of particular types of behavior.

Qualities I sought in a scientific theory were naturalness, inner perfection and logical simplicity from an aesthetic approach.

In the middle of difficulties lie opportunities.

I think and think for months and years. Ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right.

We should be on our guard not to overestimate science and scientific methods when it is a question of human problems, and we should not assume that experts are the only ones who have the right to express themselves on questions affecting the organization of society.

Only the [Catholic] Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler’s campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom. I am forced thus to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly.

Don't dream of being a good person, be a human being is valuable and gives value to life.

In every true searcher of Nature there is a kind of religious reverence, for he finds it impossible to imagine that he is the first to have thought out the exceedingly delicate threads that connect his perceptions

Nothing truly valuable can be achieved except by the unselfish cooperation of many individuals.

Experience alone can decide on truth.

The greatest knowledge a person can possess is the address of the local library.

I have come to know the mutability of all human relationships and have learned to insulate myself against both heat and cold so that a temperature balance is fairly well assured.

The really valuable thing in the pageant of human life seems to me not the political state, but the creative, sentient individual, the personality; it alone creates the noble and the sublime, while the herd as such remains dull in thought and dull in feeling.

From a certain temperature on, the molecules 'condense' without attractive forces; that is, they accumulate at zero velocity. The theory is pretty, but is there some truth in it.

It occurred to me by intuition, and music was the driving force behind that intuition. My discovery was the result of musical perception.

The longing to behold this pre-established harmony [of phenomena and theoretical principles] is the source of the inexhaustible patience and perseverance with which Planck has devoted himself ... The state of mind which enables a man to do work of this kind is akin to that of the religious worshiper or the lover; the daily effort comes from no deliberate intention or program, but straight from the heart.

Experts are just trained dogs.

There is nothing known as "Perfect". Its only those imperfections which we choose not to see!!

How can any educated person stay away from the Greeks? I have always been far more interested in them than in science.

Conceptions without experience are void; experience without conceptions is blind.

Balance in large measure is knowing the things that can be changed, putting them in proper perspective, and recognizing the things that will not change."

Imagination without knowledge may create beautiful things, knowledge without imagination can create only perfect ones.

Don't become a seeker of success. Become a person of value.

On the other hand, the concept owes its meaning and its justification exclusively to the totality of the sense impressions which we associate with it.

A religious person is devout in the sense that he has no doubt about the significance of those superpersonal objects and goals which neither require nor are capable of rational foundation

The analogy I like is this imagine being able to see the world but you are deaf, and then suddenly someone gives you the ability to hear things as well - you get an extra dimension of perception,

Out of the multitude of our sense experiences we take, mentally and arbitrarily, certain repeatedly occurring complexes of sense impression (partly in conjunction with sense impressions which are interpreted as signs for sense experiences of others), and we attribute to them a meaning the meaning of the bodily object.

I always have a high regard for the individual and have an insuperable distaste for violence and clubmanship. All these motives made me into a passionate pacifist and anti-militarist. I am against any nationalism, even in the guise of mere patriotism. Privileges based on position and property have always seemed to me unjust and pernicious, as did any exaggerated personality cult.

A finely tempered nature longs to escape from the personal life into the world of objective perception and thought.

The trite objects of human efforts-possessions, superficial success, luxury-have always seemed contemptible to me.

The most important question a person can ask is, "Is the Universe a friendly place?

I know very well that many scientists consider dowsing as they do astrology, as a type of ancient superstition. According to my conviction this is, unjustified. The dowsing rod is a simple instrument which shows the uncanny reaction of the human nervous system to certain factors which are unknown to us at this time.

Adversity introduces a man to himself.

I believe in standardizing automobiles. I do not believe in standardizing human beings. Standardization is a great peril which threatens American culture.

Success comes from curiosity, concentration, perseverance and self criticism.

An expert is a person who has few new ideas; a beginner is a person with many.

The world is in greater peril from those who tolerate or encourage evil than from those who actually commit it.

It is entirely possible that behind the perception of our senses, worlds are hidden of which we are unaware.

There are times when one feels liberated from one’s limits and human imperfections. At such moments, we see ourselves there, in a little corner of our little planet, our eyes fixed in wonder on the cold and yet deep beauty of that which is eternal, that which is elusive. Life and death are fused together and there is no evolution, nor destination, there is only BEING.

I believe the most important mission of the state is to protect the individual and make it possible for him to develop into a creative personality.

They come into being not through demonstration but through revelation, through the medium of powerful personalities.

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.

How insidious Nature is when one is trying to get at it experimentally.

What humanity owes to personalities like Buddha, Moses, and Jesus ranks for me higher than all the achievements of the enquiring and constructive mind.

The only justification for our concepts and systems of concepts is that they serve to represent the complex of our experiences; beyond this they have not legitimacy.

Mathematics deals exclusively with the relations of concepts to each other without consideration of their relation to experience.

The opinion prevailed among 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.

A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving.

So would a Being, endowed with higher insight and more perfect intelligence, watching man and his doings, smile about man's illusion that he was acting according to his own free will.

Failure is only postponed success as long as courage 'coaches' ambition.

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

Information is not knowledge. The only source of knowledge is experience. You need experience to gain wisdom.

The place of the expert is on tap not on top.

The cult of individual personalities is always, in my view, unjustified. To be sure, nature distributes her gifts variously among her children. But there are plenty of the well-endowed ones too, thank God, and I am firmly convinced that most of them live quiet, unregarded lives.

We must remember that we do not observe nature as it actually exists, but nature exposed to our methods of perception. The theories determine what we can or cannot observe...Reality is an illusion, albeit a persistent one.

Never regard study as a duty, but as the enviable opportunity to learn to know the liberating influence of beauty in the realm of the spirit for your own personal joy and to the profit of the community to which your later work belongs.

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.

The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious - the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Living Philosophies, 1931

one of the strongest motives that lead men to art and science isescape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopelessdreariness, from the fetters of one's own ever-shifting desires. Afinely tempered nature longs to escape from the personal life into theworld of objective perception and thought.

How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people.

Science is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.

Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.

Confusion of goals and perfection of means seems, in my opinion, to characterize our age.

Perfection of means and confusion of goals seem - in my opinion - to characterize our age

Perfection of means and confusion of goals seem -- in my opinion -- to characterize our age.

Perfection of means and confusion of ends seem to characterize our age

The distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion

Keep on sowing your seed, for you never know which will grow -- perhaps it all will.

The only way to escape the personal corruption of praise is to go on working.

I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves - such an ethical basis I call more proper for a herd of swine. The ideals which have lighted me on my way and time after time given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Truth, Goodness, and Beauty.

Reality is merely an illusion, although a very persistent one

Since I do not foresee that atomic energy is to be a great boon for a long time, I have to say that for the present it is a menace. Perhaps it is well that it should be. It may intimidate the human race into bringing order into it's international affairs, which without the pressure of fear, it would not do.

Persistence is the most powerful force on earth, it can move mountains.

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.

Don't listen to the person who has the answers; listen to the person who has the questions.