Albert Einstein...

E = M C2

“There are two ways to live your life - one is as though nothing is a
miracle, the other is as though everything is a miracle.”

*The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all

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.

*A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no

religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear

of punishment and hope of reward after death.

*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.

*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.

*One had to cram all this stuff into one's mind for the examinations, whether one liked it or not.

This coercion had such a deterring effect on me that, after I had passed the final examination, I

found the consideration of any scientific problems distasteful to me for an entire year.

*...one of the strongest motives that lead men to art and science is escape from everyday life with

its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness, from the fetters of one's own ever-shifting desires. A

finely tempered nature longs to escape from the personal life into the world of objective perception

and thought.

*He who joyfully marches to music rank and file, has already earned my contempt. He has been

given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice. This disgrace to

civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, how violently I hate all this,

how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an

action. It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.

* A human being is a part of a whole, called by us 'universe', a part limited in time and space. He

experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest... a kind of

optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our

personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free

ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and

the whole of nature in its beauty.

*Imagination is more important than knowledge.

*Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.

*I want to know God's thoughts; the rest are details.

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

*A person starts to live when he can live outside himself.

*I am convinced that He (God) does not play dice.

*God is subtle but he is not malicious.

*Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.

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

*The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility.

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

*Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind.

*Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.

*Great spirits have often encountered violent opposition from weak minds.

*Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.

*Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.

*Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it.

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

*The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.

*God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates empirically.

*The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.

*Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal.

*Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.

*The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.

*We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.

*Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school.

*The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.

*Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater.

*If A is a success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your

mouth shut.

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

*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.

*Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the

laughter of the gods.

sticks and stones.

*In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must, above all, be a sheep.

*The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there's no risk of accident for someone

who's dead.

*Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the

name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them!

*No, this trick won't work...How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and

physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love?

*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 mind.

*The release of atom 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.

*Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand

it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and

courageously uses his intelligence.

*Most teachers waste their time by asking questions which are intended to discover what a pupil

does not know, whereas the true art of questioning has for its purpose to discover what the pupil

knows or is capable of knowing.

*Never regard your 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.

*Humiliation and mental oppression by ignorant and selfish teachers wreak havoc in the youthful

mind that can never be undone and often exert a baleful influence in later life.

*The aim (of education) must be the training of independently acting and thinking individuals who,

however, can see in the service to the community their highest life achievement.

*Teaching should be such that what is offered is perceived as a valuable gift and not as a hard

duty.

*It is better for people to be like the beasts...they should be more intuitive; they should not be too

conscious of what they are doing while they are doing it.

*Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.

*The life of the individual has meaning only insofar as it aids in making the life of every living thing

nobler and more beautiful. Life is sacred, that is to say, it is the supreme value, to which all other

values are subordinate.

*The most precious things in life are note those one gets for money.
*He who cherishes the values of culture cannot fail to be a pacifist.

*My pacificism is an instinctive feeling, a feeling that possesses me because the murder of people

is disgusting. My attitude is not derived from any intellectual theory but is based on my deepest

antipathy to every kind of cruelty and hatred.

*To my mind, to kill in war is not a whit better than to commit ordinary murder.

*He who joyfully marches to music rank and file, has already earned my contempt. He has been

given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice. This disgrace to

civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, how violently I hate all this,

how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an

action. It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.

*Everything is determined by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect

as well as for the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust - we all dance to a mysterious

tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper.

*After a certain high level of technical skill is achieved, science and art tend to coalesce in

esthetics, plasticity, and form. The greatest scientists are always artists as well.

*You cannot love a car the way you love a horse. The horse brings out human feelings the way

machines cannot do. Things like machines may develop or neglect certain things in people ...

Machines make our life impersonal and stultify certain elements in us and create an impersonal

environment.

*I believe that the horrifying deterioration in the ethical conduct of people today stems from the

mechanization and dehumanization of our lives - the disastrous by-product of the scientific and

technical mentality. Nostra culpa. Man grows cold faster than the planet he inhabits.

*Betterment of conditions the world over is not essentially dependent on scientific knowledge but

on the fulfilment of human traditions and ideals.

*People do not grow old no matter how long we live. We never cease to stand like curious children

before the great Mystery into which we were born.

*I am content in my later years. I have kept my good humor and take neither myself nor the next

person seriously.

*Human beings can attain a worthy and harmonious life only if they are able to rid themselves,

within the limits of human nature, of the striving for the wish fulfilment of material kinds. The goal is

to raise the spiritual values of society.

*I admit thoughts influence the body.

*I am absolutely convinced that no wealth in the world can help humanity forward, even in the

hands of the most devoted worker in this cause. The example of great and pure personages is the
only thing that can lead us to find ideas and noble deeds. Money only appeals to selfishness and

always irresistibly tempts its owner to abuse it. Can anyone imagine Moses, Jesus or Gandhi with

the moneybags of Carnegie?

*Anger dwells only in the bosom of fools.

*The tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he lives.

A photograph never grows old. You and I change, people change all through the months and

years but a photograph always remains the same. How nice to look at a photograph of mother or

father taken many years ago. You see them as you remember them. But as people live on, they

change completely. That is why I think a photograph can be kind.

“The gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent or absorbing