Albert Einstein Um Quotations

... we will hope that future historians will explain the morbid symptoms of present-day society as the childhood ailments of an aspiring humanity, due entirely to the excessive speed at which civilization was advancing.

I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our own being.

What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism.

I believe in standardizing automobiles, not human beings.

The only race I know is the human one.

If I could do it all again, I'd be a plumber.

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

It has become appallingly clear that our technology has surpassed our humanity. I hope that someday, our humanity might yet surpass our technology.

Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.

We can invent as many theories we like, and any one of them can be made to fit the facts. But that theory is always preferred which makes the fewest number of assumptions.

For the most part, I do the thing which my own nature prompts me to do. It is embarrassing to earn so much respect and love for it.

How can he possibly be humble? He hasn't done anything yet.

I have little patience with scientists who take a board of wood, look for its thinnest part, and drill a great number of holes where drilling is easy.

The importance of a problem should not be judged by the number of pages devoted to it.

I don't teach my students, I provide the circumstances in which they can learn.

Academic chairs are many, but wise and noble teachers are few; lecture-rooms are numerous and large, but the number of young people who genuinely thirst after truth and justice is small

I am satisfied with the mystery of life's eternity and with a knowledge, a sense, of the marvelous structure of existence - as well as the humble attempt to understand even a tiny portion of the Reason that manifests itself in nature.

The great moral teachers of humanity were in a way artistic geniuses in the art of living.

I have lived to prove Thoreau's contention that a man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.

With me every peep becomes a trumpet solo.

Human knowledge and skills alone cannot lead humanity to a happy and dignified life. Humanity has every reason to place the proclaimers of high moral standards and values above the discoverers of objective truth.

Berlin is the place to which I am most closely bound by human and scientific ties.

Those instrumental goods which should serve to maintain the life and health of all human beings should be produced by the least possible labour of all.

The more one chases the quanta, the better they hide themselves.

What I see in Nature is a grand design that we can understand only imperfectly, one with which a responsible person must look at with humility.

What is the meaning of human life, or of organic life altogether? To answer this question at all implies a religion.

Our technology has surpassed our humanity

If I had only known, I would have been a locksmith.

There's no question dolphins are smarter than humans as they play more.

It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.

Earth is the insane asylum of the universe.

In any conflict between humanity and technology, humanity will win.

If [quantum theory] is correct, it signifies the end of physics as a science.

Every one who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe-a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble.

I cannot conceive of a personal God who would directly influence the actions of individuals, or would directly sit in judgment on creatures of his own creation. I cannot do this in spite of the fact that mechanistic causality has, to a certain extent, been placed in doubt by modern science. My religiosity consists in a humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit that reveals itself in the little that we, with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality. Morality is of the highest importance - but for us, not for God.

Assumptions are made and most assumptions are wrong.

e idea of a personal God is quite alien to me and seems even naive. However, I am also not a "Freethinker" in the usual sense of the word because I find that this is in the main an attitude nourished exclusively by an opposition against naive superstition. My feeling is insofar religious as I am imbued with the consciousness of the insuffiency of the human mind to understand deeply the harmony of the Universe which we try to formulate as "laws of nature." It is this consciousness and humility I miss in the Freethinker mentality. Sincerely yours, Albert Einstein.

Without "ethical culture", there is no salvation for humanity.

To stimulate creativity one must develop childlike inclination for play and the childlike desire for recognition.

The grand aim of all science is to cover the greatest number of empirical facts by logical deduction from the smallest number of hypotheses or axioms.

I like the Swiss because by and large they are more humane than the other people aming whom I have lived.

The number of natural hypothesis that can explain any given phenomena is infinite.

Applying the axioms of physical science to human life has something reprehensible to it.

As soon as science has emerged from its initial stages, theoretical advances are no longer achieved merely by a process of arrangement. Guided by empirical data, the investigator rather develops a system of thought which, in general, is built up logically from a small number of fundamental assumptions, the so-called axioms. We call such a system of thought a theory. The theory finds the justification for its existence in the fact that it correlates a large number of single observations, and it is just here that the 'truth' of the theory lies.

[O]nly if every individual strives for truth can humanity attain a happier future; the atavisms in each of us that stand in the way of a friendlier destiny can only thus be rendered ineffective.

If I had it [life] to do all over again, I'd have been a plumber.

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

Indeed, it is not intellect, but intuition which advances humanity. Intuition tells man his purpose in this life.

I appeal to all men and women, whether they be eminent or humble, to declare that they will refuse to give any further assistance to war or the preparation of war.

Quantum mechanics is very impressive. But an inner voice tells me that it is not yet the real thing. The theory yields a lot, but it hardly brings us any closer to the secret of the Old One. In any case I am convinced that He doesn't play dice

There was this huge world out there, independent of us human beings and standing before us like a great, eternal riddle, at least partly accessible to our inspection and thought. The contemplation of that world beckoned like a liberation.

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.

How many people are trapped in their everyday habits: part numb, part frightened, part indifferent? To have a better life we must keep choosing how we are living.

There is only one road to human greatness: through the school of hard knocks.

I said before, the most beautiful and most profound religious emotion that we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. And this mysticality is the power of all true science. If there is any such concept as a God, it is a subtle spirit, not an image of a man that so many have fixed in their minds. In essence, my religion consists of a humble admiration for this illimitable superior spirit that reveals itself in the slight details that we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds.

Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized.

Human beings, vegetables, or comic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible player

Small is the number of them that see with their own eyes, and feel with their own hearts

Enjoying the joys of others and suffering with them - these are the best guides for man.

I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe.

We cannot despair of humanity, since we are ourselves human beings

With the affairs of active human beings it is different. Here knowledge of truth alone does not suffice; on the contrary this knowledge must continually be renewed by ceaseless effort, if it is not to be lost. It resembles a statue of marble which st

I want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts; the rest are details.

The human mind is not capable of grasping the Universe. We are like a little child entering a huge library. The walls are covered to the ceilings with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written these books. It doe

Nationalism is an infantile sickness. It is the measles of the human race.

Once you can accept the universe as being something expanding into an infinite nothing which is something, wearing stripes with plaid is easy.

Understanding of our fellow human beings...becomes fruitful only when it is sustained by sympathetic feelings in joy and sorrow.

The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained liberation from the self.

The true value of a human being can be found in degrees to which he has attained liberation from the self.

It is appallingly obvious our technology has exceeded our humanity

Possessions, outward success, publicity, luxury -- to me these have always been contemptible. I assume that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for everyone, best for both the body and the mind

The real problem is in the hearts and minds of men. It is easier to denature plutonium than to denature the evil spirit of man.

Common sense is merely the deposit of prejudice laid down in the human mind before the age of 18