A civilian can afford to do what no diplomat would dare.
“In the middle of a difficulty lies opportunity.”
People like you and me never grow old," "We never cease to stand like curious children before the great mystery into which we were born.
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler"
Try not to become a person of success, but rather try to become a person of value.
The only real valuable thing is intuition.
One may say "the eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility."
If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music.
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.
The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.
Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing.
There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.
The only life worth living is a life lived for others.
Imagination will take you everywhere.
When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute - and it's longer than any hour. That's relativity.
The development of general ability for independent thinking and judgment should always be placed foremost, not the acquisition of special knowledge.
An empty stomach is not a good political adviser.
The majority of us prefer to look to the outside world and not inside of your own self.
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 and fulfills the duty to express the results of his thought in clear form.
Be a loner. That gives you time to wonder, to search for the truth. Have holy curiosity. Make your life worth living.
Try not to become a man of success, but a man of value. Look around at how people want to get more out of life than they put in. A man of value will give more than he receives. Be creative, but make sure that what you create is not a curse for mankind.
If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or objects.
I maintain that the cosmic religious feeling is the strongest and noblest motive for scientific research.
The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.
Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.
The woman who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. The woman who walks alone is likely to find herself in places no one has ever been before.
A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based 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...
In living through this "great epoch," it is difficult to reconcile oneself to the fact that one belongs to that mad, degenerate species that boasts of its free will. How I wish that somewhere there existed an island for those who are wise and of good will! In such a place even I should be an ardent patriot!
Concepts that have proven useful in ordering things easily achieve such authority over us that we forget their earthly origins and accept them as unalterable givens.
Our entire much-praised technological progress, and civilization generally, could be compared to an axe in the hand of a pathological criminal.
I believe in Spinoza's God, Who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God Who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind.
Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving
I cannot believe that God plays dice with the cosmos!
The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.
Perfection of means and confusion of goals seem in my opinion to characterize our age.
The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.
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.
The example of great and pure individuals is the only thing that can lead us to noble thoughts and deeds.
Money only appeals to selfishness and irresistibly invites abuse. Can anyone imagine Moses, Jesus, or Gandhi armed with the moneybags of Carnegie?
Reading after a certain age diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.
Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.
All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man's life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom.
Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.
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.
Physical concepts are free creations of the human mind, and are not, however they may seem, uniquely determined by the external world. In our endeavor to understand reality we are somewhat like a man trying to understand the mechanism of a closed watch. He sees the face and the moving hands, even hears its ticking, but he has no way to open the case. If he is ingenious he may form some picture of a mechanism which could be responsible for all of the things he observes, but he may never be quite sure his picture is the only one which could explain his observations. He will never be able to compare his picture with the real mechanism and he cannot even imagine the possibility or the meaning of such a comparison. But he certainly believes that, as his knowledge increases, his picture of reality will become simpler and simpler and will explain a wider and wider range of his sensuous impressions. He may also believe in the existence of the ideal limit of knowledge and that it is approached by the human mind. He may call this ideal limit the objective truth.
hy does this magnificent applied science which saves work and makes life easier bring us so little happiness? The simple answer runs: Because we have not yet learned to make sensible use of it. In war it serves that we may poison and mutilate each other. In peace it has made our lives hurried and uncertain. Instead of freeing us in great measure from spiritually exhausting labor, it has made men into slaves of machinery, who for the most part complete their monotonous long day's work with disgust and must continually tremble for their poor rations. … It is not enough that you should understand about applied science in order that your work may increase man's blessings. Concern for the man himself and his fate must always form the chief interest of all technical endeavours; concern for the great unsolved problems of the organization of labor and the distribution of goods in order that the creations of our mind shall be a blessing and not a curse to mankind. Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations.
You can live your life saying nothing is a miracle or you can live your life as if everything everyday is a miracle.
We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.
Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.
Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.