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One must console oneself with the thought that time has a sieve through which most of these important things run into the ocean of oblivion and what remains after this selection is often still trite and bad.
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Honestly, I cannot understand what people mean when they talk about the freedom of the human will. I have a feeling, for instance, that I will something or other; but what relation this has with freedom I cannot understand at all. I feel that I will to light my pipe and I do it; but how can I connect this up with the idea of freedom? What is behind the act of willing to light the pipe ? Another act of willing?
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Non-comprehenders are often distressed. Not you, though-because with good humor you're blessed. After all, your thoughts went like this, I dare say: It was none but the Lord who made us that way.
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The relativity principle in connection with the basic Maxwellian equations demands that the mass should be a direct measure of the energy contained in a body; light transfers mass. With radium there should be a noticeable diminution of mass. The idea is amusing and enticing; but whether the Almighty is laughing at it and is leading me up the garden path -- that I cannot know.
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I have no extraordinary ability. I'm simply an inquisitive individual.
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Israel is the only place on earth where Jews have the possibility to shape public life according to their own traditional ideals.
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When we are working at something, we come down from our high logical horse and sniff around with our nose to the ground. Then we obliterate our traces in order to become more God-like.
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Men like Henry George are rare, unfortunately. One cannot imagine a more beautiful combination of intellectual keenness, artistic form, and fervent love of justice.
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We believe that an informed citizenry will act for life and not for death.
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Although I am a typical loner in daily life, my consciousness of belonging to the invisible community of those who strive for truth, beauty, and justice has preserved me from feeling isolated.
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As to science, we may well define it for our purpose as "methodical thinking directed toward finding regulative connections between our sensual experiences".
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You imagine that I look back on my life's work with calm satisfaction. But from nearby it looks quite different. There is not a single concept of which I am convinced that it will stand firm, and I feel uncertain whether I am in general on the right track.
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I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves - this critical basis I call the ideal of a pigsty.
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Then there are the fanatical atheists whose intolerance is of the same kind as the intolerance of the religious fanatics and comes from the same source.
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I became more and more convinced that even nature could be understood as a relatively simple mathematical structure.
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There are two different conceptions about the nature of the universe: the world as a unity dependent on humanity; the world as a reality independent of the human factor.
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All means prove but blunt instruments, if they have not behind them a living spirit.
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The led must not be compelled; they must be able to choose their own leader.
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The aim of science is, on the one hand, as complete a comprehension as possible of the connection between perceptible experiences in their totality, and, on the other hand, the achievement of this aim by employing a minimum of primary concepts and relations.
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I am not a positivist. Positivism states that what cannot be observed does not exist. This conception is scientifically indefensible, for it is impossible to make valid affirmations of what people 'can' or 'cannot' observe. One would have to say 'only what we observe exists,' which is obviously false.
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The goal of pacifism is possible only though a supranational organization. To stand unconditionally for this cause is the criterion of true pacifism.
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There are moments when one feels free from one's own identification with human limitations and inadequacies. At such moments one imagines that one stands on some spot of a small planet, gazing in amazement at the cold yet profoundly moving beauty of the eternal, the unfathomable; life and death flow into one, and there is neither evolution nor destiny; only Being.
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I would absolutely refuse any direct or indirect war service and would try to persuade my friends to do the same, regardless of the reasons for the cause of a war.
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It is the duty of every citizen according to his best capacities to give validity to his convictions in political affairs.