Albert Einstein Quotes
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The scientific theorist is not to be envied. For Nature, or more precisely experiment, is an exorable and not very friendly judge of his work. It never says "yes" to a theory. In the most favorable cases it says "Maybe," and in the great majority of cases simply "No." If an experiment agrees with a theory it means for the latter "Maybe," and if it does not agree it means "No." Probably every theory will some day experience its "No" - most theories, soon after conception.
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Is there not a certain satisfaction in the fact that natural limits are set to the life of the individual, so that at the conclusion it may appear as a work of art?
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Whether you can observe a thing or not depends on the theory which you use. It is the theory which decides what can be observed.
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If a man aspires towards a righteous life, his first act of abstinence is from injury to animals.
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War seems to me to be a mean, contemptible thing: I would rather be hacked in pieces than take part in such an abominable business. And yet so high, in spite of everything, is my opinion of the human race that I believe this bogey would have disappeared long ago, had the sound sense of the nations not been systematically corrupted by commercial and political interests acting through the schools and the Press.
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A theory is something nobody believes, except the person who made it. An experiment is something everybody believes, except the person who made it.
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But in physics I soon learned to scent out the paths that led to the depths, and to disregard everything else, all the many things that clutter up the mind, and divert it from the essential. The hitch in this was, of course, the fact that one had to cram all this stuff into one's mind for the examination, whether one liked it or not.
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Nature shows us only the tail of the lion. But there is no doubt in my mind that the lion belongs with it even if he cannot reveal himself to the eye all at once because of his huge dimension.
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I don't try to imagine a personal God; it suffices to stand in awe at the structure of the world, insofar as it allows our inadequate senses to appreciate it.
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A person experiences life as something separated from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. Our task must be to free ourselves from this self-imposed prison, and through compassion, to find the reality of Oneness.
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Anti-Semitism is nothing but the antagonistic attitude produced in the non-Jew by the Jewish group. This is a normal social reaction. The Jewish group has thrived on oppression and on the antagonism it has forever met in the world... the root cause is their use of enemies they create in order to keep solidarity.
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We scientists, whose tragic destination has been to help in making the methods of annihilation more gruesome and more effective, must consider it our solemn and transcendent duty to do all in our power in preventing these weapons from being used for the brutal purpose for which they were invented.
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I am not an atheist. I do not know if I can define myself as a pantheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds.
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Any brief military advantage the USA might gain with nuclear weapons would be offset by political and psychological losses and damage to American prestige. The United States might even touch off a worldwide armaments race.
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On being reproached that his formula of gravitation was longer and more cumbersome than Newton's.
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It is a precarious undertaking to say anything reliable about aims and intentions.
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We dance for laughter, we dance for tears, we dance for madness, we dance for fears, we dance for hopes, we dance for screams, we are the dancers, we create the dreams.
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The really valuable method of thought to arrive at a logically coherent system is intuition.
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What is the meaning of human life, or of organic life altogether? To answer this question at all implies a religion. Is there any sense then, you ask, in putting it? I answer, the man who regards his own life and that of his fellow creatures as meaningless is not merely unfortunate but almost disqualified for life.
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I never said half the crap people said I did.
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The wireless telegraph is not difficult to understand. The ordinary telegraph is like a very long cat. You pull the tail in New York, and it meows in Los Angeles. The wireless is the same, only without the cat.
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Although I have been prevented by outward circumstances from observing a strictly vegetarian diet, I have long been an adherent to the cause in principle.
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Anyone can be a genius, if they pick just one specific subject and study it diligently just 15 minutes each day.
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If I am right the Germans will say I was a German, and the French will say I was a Jew; If I am wrong the Germans will say I was a Jew and the French will say I was a German.