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|
Einstein quotations from the IUSB Physics home page, in
celebration of the World Year of Physics 2005 and Albert
Einstein's annus mirabilis, 1905 |
"The mainspring of scientific thought is not an external
goal toward which one must strive, but the pleasure of thinking."
-- Albert Einstein, to Heinrich Zangger, ca. August 11, 1918
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"It is always delightful when a great and beautiful idea proves to be consonant with
reality."
-- Albert Einstein, to Sigmund Freud, April 21, 1936
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice, ed., Princeton, 2000)
"There is, however, a somber point in the social outlook of
Americans. Their sense of equality and human dignity is mainly
limited to people of white skin.... The more I feel like an
American, the more this situation pains me."
-- Albert Einstein, from an address at Lincoln University, a university for black
men, May 3, 1956
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice, ed., Princeton, 2000)
"I was originally supposed to be an engineer, but the thought of
having to expend my creative energy on things that make practical
everyday life even more refined, with a loathsome capital gain as
the goal, was unbearable to me."
-- Albert Einstein, to Heinrich Zangger, ca. August 11, 1918
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice, ed., Princeton, 2000)
"Teaching should be such that what is offered is perceived as a
valuable gift and not as a hard duty."
-- Albert Einstein, quoted in the New York Times, October 5, 1952
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice, ed., Princeton, 2000)
"I've completely solved the problem. My solution was to analyze the
concept of time. Time cannot be absolutely defined, and there is an
inseparable relation between time and signal velocity."
-- Albert Einstein, said to Michele Besso, May 1905
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice, ed., Princeton, 2000)
"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."
-- Albert Einstein, from "Science, Philosophy, and Religion," published in 1941
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice, ed., Princeton, 2000)
"It is not the result of scientific research that ennobles
humans and enriches their nature, but the struggle to
understand while performing creative and open-minded intellectual
work."
-- Albert Einstein, from "Good and Evil," published in Mein Weltbild (1934)
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice, ed., Princeton, 2000)
"Nationalism is, in my opinion, nothing more than an idealistic
rationalization for militarism and aggression."
-- Albert Einstein, form the first draft of a speech at Royal Albert Hall, London,
October 3, 1933
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice, ed., Princeton, 2000)
"Personally, I experience the greatest degree of pleasure in having
contact with works of art. They furnish me with happy feelings of an intensity
that I cannot derive from other sources."
-- Albert Einstein, quoted in Moszkowski, Conversations with Einstein 1920
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice, ed., Princeton, 2000)
"Never regard your study as a duty, but as the enviable opportunity
to learn the liberating influence of beauty for your own personal
joy and for the profit of the community to which your later work
will belong."
-- Albert Einstein, in the Princeton University freshman publication, The
Dink, December 1933
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice, ed., Princeton, 2000)
"The Lord God is subtle, but malicious he is not. (In the original
German, `Raffiniert ist der Herr Gott, aber boshaft ist Er nicht.')"
-- Albert Einstein, originally said to Princeton University mathematics professor
Oscar Veblen, May 1921
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"A life directed chiefly toward the fulfillment of personal desires
will sooner or later always lead to bitter disappointment."
-- Albert Einstein, to L. Lee, January 16, 1954
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice, ed., Princeton, 2000)
"Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by
understanding. You cannot subjugate a nation forcibly unless you
wipe out every man, woman, and child. Unless you wish to use such
drastic measures, you must find a way of settling your disputes
without resort to arms."
-- Albert Einstein, from "Militant Pacifism," in Cosmic Religion (1931)
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice, ed., Princeton, 2000)
"Organized religion may regain some of the respect it lost in the
last war if it dedicates itself to mobilizing the goodwill and
energy of its followers against the rising tide of illiberalism."
-- Albert Einstein, New York Times, April 30, 1934
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice, ed., Princeton, 2000)
"My direct path to the special theory of relativity was mainly
determined by the conviction that the electromotive force induced in
a conductor moving in a magnetic field is nothing other than an
electric field."
-- Albert Einstein, read at a celebration of the centennial of Albert Michelson's
birth, December 19, 1952
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"If God created the world, his primary concern was certainly not to
make its understanding easy for us."
-- Albert Einstein, to David Bohm, February 10, 1954
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"My position concerning God is that of an agnostic. I am convinced
that a vivid consciousness of the primary importance of moral
principles for the betterment and ennoblement of life does not need
the idea of a law-giver, especially a law-giver who works on the
basis of reward and punishment."
-- Albert Einstein, to M. Berkowitz, October 25, 1950
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"Professionally, scientists and mathematicians are strictly
international-minded and guard carefully against any unfriendly
measures taken against their colleagues living in hostile foreign
countries. Historians and philologists, on the other hand, are
chauvinistic hotheads."
-- Albert Einstein, to H.A. Lorentz, August 2, 1915
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"The theory of relativity is nothing but another step in the
centuries-old evolution of our science, one which preserves the
relationships discovered in the past, deepening their insights and
adding new ones."
-- Albert Einstein, in an unpublished manuscript, ca. 1920
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"The scientist finds his reward in what Henri Poincare calls the joy
of comprehension, and not in the possibilities of application to
which any discovery may lead."
-- Albert Einstein, from the epilogue to Planck, (1932)
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"A theory is the more impressive the greater the simplicity of its
premises, the more different kinds of things it relates, and the
more extended its area of applicability."
-- Albert Einstein, from "Autobiographical Notes," in Schilpp, Albert Einstein:
Philospher-Scientist
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"With fame I become more and more stupid, which of course is a very
common phenomenon."
-- Albert Einstein, to Heinrich Zangger, December 1919
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"I believe that a simple and unassuming life is good for everybody,
both physically and mentally."
-- Albert Einstein, from "What I Believe," Forum and Century 84, (1930)
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"It is not so very important for a person to learn facts. For that
he does not really need college. He can learn them from books. The
value of an education in a liberal arts college is not the learning
of many facts, but the training of the mind to think something that
cannot be learned from textbooks."
-- Albert Einstein, on Thomas Edison's opinion that a college education is
useless, 1921
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"I always think of Michelson as the artist in science. His greatest
joy seemed to come from the beauty of the experiment itself and the
elegance of the method employed."
-- Albert Einstein, to Robert Shankland, September 17, 1953
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"When a blind beetle crawls over the surface of a curved branch, it
doesn't notice that the track it has covered is indeed curved. I
was lucky enough to notice what the beetle didn't notice."
-- Albert Einstein, to his son Edward, 1922. Quoted in Max Flueckiger, Albert
Einstein in Bern
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"I have warm admiration for American institutes of scientific
research. We are unjust in attempting to ascribe the increasing
superiority of American research work exclusively to superior
wealth; devotion, patience, a spirit of comradeship, and a talent
for cooperation play an important part in its success."
-- Albert Einstein, from an interview, Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant, 1921
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"The aim [of education] must be the training of independently acting
and thinking individuals who, however, see in the service to the
community their highest life achievement."
-- Albert Einstein, address at a convention at SUNY Albany, October 15, 1936
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"Madame Curie is very intelligent but as cold as a herring, meaning
that she lacks all feelings of joy and sorrow. Almost the only way
she expresses her feelings is to rail against things she doesn't
like. And she has a daughter who is even worse -- like a grenadier.
This daughter is also very gifted."
-- Albert Einstein, to Elsa Loewenthal, ca. August 11, 1913
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"I believe that Gandhi's views were the most enlightened among all of
the political men of our time. We should strive to do things in his
spirit; not to use violence in fighting for our cause, but by
nonparticipation in what we believe is evil."
-- Albert Einstein, from a United Nations Radio interview, June 16, 1950
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"Music does not influence research work, but both are
nourished by the same sort of longing, and they complement each
other in the release they offer."
-- Albert Einstein, to Paul Plaut, October 23, 1928
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"The more a country makes military weapons, the more insecure it
becomes: if you have weapons, you become a target for attack."
-- Albert Einstein, from a conversation with M. Aram, January 1953
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has
merely made more urgent the necessary solving of an existing one.
One could say it has affected us quantitatively, not qualitatively."
-- Albert Einstein, from "Atomic War or Peace," Atlantic Monthly, November
1945
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"The pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, an almost fanatical love
of justice, and the desire for personal independence--these are the
features of the Jewish tradition which make me thank my lucky stars
that I belong to it."
-- Albert Einstein, from "Jewish Ideals," in Mein Weltbild (1934)
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
(On Planck) "He was one of the finest people I have ever known... but
he really did not understand physics, [because] during the eclipse
of 1919 he stayed up all night to see if it would confirm the
bending of light by the gravitational field. If he had
really understood the general theory of relativity, he would
have gone to bed the way I did."
-- Albert Einstein, quoted by Ernst Straus, in French, Einstein: A Centenary
Volume
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
(on Heike Kamerlingh-Onnes) "A life has ended that will always remain
a role model for future generations.... No other person have I
known for whom duty and joy were one and the same. This was the
reason for his harmonious life."
-- Albert Einstein, to the Dutch physicist's widow, February 25, 1926
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"By academic freedom I understand the right to search for truth and
to publish and teach what one holds to be true. This right also
implies a duty: one must not conceal any part of what one has
recognized to be true. It is evident that any restriction of
academic freedom acts in such a way as to hamper the dissemination
of knowledge among the people and thereby impedes national judgment
and action."
-- Albert Einstein, statement for a conference of the Emergency Civil Liberties
Committee, March 13, 1954
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"To punish me for my contempt for authority, Fate has made me an
authority myself."
-- Albert Einstein, aphorism for a friend, September 18, 1930
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often
think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in
terms of music.... I get most joy in life out of music."
-- Albert Einstein, from an interview, Saturday Evening Post, October 26, 1929
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"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."
-- Albert Einstein, in a statement to the War Resisters International, Lyons, France,
1931
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"Organized religion may regain some of the respect it lost in the
last war if it dedicates itself to mobilizing the goodwill and
energy of its followers against the rising tide of illiberalism."
-- Albert Einstein, New York Times, April 30, 1934
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice, ed., Princeton, 2000)
"My direct path to the special theory of relativity was mainly
determined by the conviction that the electromotive force induced in
a conductor moving in a magnetic field is nothing other than an
electric field."
-- Albert Einstein, read at a celebration of the centennial of Albert Michelson's
birth, December 19, 1952
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"If God created the world, his primary concern was certainly not to
make its understanding easy for us."
-- Albert Einstein, to David Bohm, February 10, 1954
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"My position concerning God is that of an agnostic. I am convinced
that a vivid consciousness of the primary importance of moral
principles for the betterment and ennoblement of life does not need
the idea of a law-giver, especially a law-giver who works on the
basis of reward and punishment."
-- Albert Einstein, to M. Berkowitz, October 25, 1950
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"Professionally, scientists and mathematicians are strictly
international-minded and guard carefully against any unfriendly
measures taken against their colleagues living in hostile foreign
countries. Historians and philologists, on the other hand, are
chauvinistic hotheads."
-- Albert Einstein, to H.A. Lorentz, August 2, 1915
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"The theory of relativity is nothing but another step in the
centuries-old evolution of our science, one which preserves the
relationships discovered in the past, deepening their insights and
adding new ones."
-- Albert Einstein, in an unpublished manuscript, ca. 1920
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"The scientist finds his reward in what Henri Poincare calls the joy
of comprehension, and not in the possibilities of application to
which any discovery may lead."
-- Albert Einstein, from the epilogue to Planck, (1932)
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"A theory is the more impressive the greater the simplicity of its
premises, the more different kinds of things it relates, and the
more extended its area of applicability."
-- Albert Einstein, from "Autobiographical Notes," in Schilpp, Albert Einstein:
Philospher-Scientist
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"With fame I become more and more stupid, which of course is a very
common phenomenon."
-- Albert Einstein, to Heinrich Zangger, December 1919
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"I believe that a simple and unassuming life is good for everybody,
both physically and mentally."
-- Albert Einstein, from "What I Believe," Forum and Century 84, (1930)
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"It is not so very important for a person to learn facts. For that
he does not really need college. He can learn them from books. The
value of an education in a liberal arts college is not the learning
of many facts, but the training of the mind to think something that
cannot be learned from textbooks."
-- Albert Einstein, on Thomas Edison's opinion that a college education is
useless, 1921
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"I always think of Michelson as the artist in science. His greatest
joy seemed to come from the beauty of the experiment itself and the
elegance of the method employed."
-- Albert Einstein, to Robert Shankland, September 17, 1953
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"When a blind beetle crawls over the surface of a curved branch, it
doesn't notice that the track it has covered is indeed curved. I
was lucky enough to notice what the beetle didn't notice."
-- Albert Einstein, to his son Edward, 1922. Quoted in Max Flueckiger, Albert
Einstein in Bern
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"I have warm admiration for American institutes of scientific
research. We are unjust in attempting to ascribe the increasing
superiority of American research work exclusively to superior
wealth; devotion, patience, a spirit of comradeship, and a talent
for cooperation play an important part in its success."
-- Albert Einstein, from an interview, Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant, 1921
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"The aim [of education] must be the training of independently acting
and thinking individuals who, however, see in the service to the
community their highest life achievement."
-- Albert Einstein, address at a convention at SUNY Albany, October 15, 1936
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"Madame Curie is very intelligent but as cold as a herring, meaning
that she lacks all feelings of joy and sorrow. Almost the only way
she expresses her feelings is to rail against things she doesn't
like. And she has a daughter who is even worse -- like a grenadier.
This daughter is also very gifted."
-- Albert Einstein, to Elsa Loewenthal, ca. August 11, 1913
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"I believe that Gandhi's views were the most enlightened among all of
the political men of our time. We should strive to do things in his
spirit; not to use violence in fighting for our cause, but by
nonparticipation in what we believe is evil."
-- Albert Einstein, from a United Nations Radio interview, June 16, 1950
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"Music does not influence research work, but both are
nourished by the same sort of longing, and they complement each
other in the release they offer."
-- Albert Einstein, to Paul Plaut, October 23, 1928
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"The more a country makes military weapons, the more insecure it
becomes: if you have weapons, you become a target for attack."
-- Albert Einstein, from a conversation with M. Aram, January 1953
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has
merely made more urgent the necessary solving of an existing one.
One could say it has affected us quantitatively, not qualitatively."
-- Albert Einstein, from "Atomic War or Peace," Atlantic Monthly, November
1945
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"The pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, an almost fanatical love
of justice, and the desire for personal independence--these are the
features of the Jewish tradition which make me thank my lucky stars
that I belong to it."
-- Albert Einstein, from "Jewish Ideals," in Mein Weltbild (1934)
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
(On Planck) "He was one of the finest people I have ever known... but
he really did not understand physics, [because] during the eclipse
of 1919 he stayed up all night to see if it would confirm the
bending of light by the gravitational field. If he had
really understood the general theory of relativity, he would
have gone to bed the way I did."
-- Albert Einstein, quoted by Ernst Straus, in French, Einstein: A Centenary
Volume
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
(on Heike Kamerlingh-Onnes) "A life has ended that will always remain
a role model for future generations.... No other person have I
known for whom duty and joy were one and the same. This was the
reason for his harmonious life."
-- Albert Einstein, to the Dutch physicist's widow, February 25, 1926
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"By academic freedom I understand the right to search for truth and
to publish and teach what one holds to be true. This right also
implies a duty: one must not conceal any part of what one has
recognized to be true. It is evident that any restriction of
academic freedom acts in such a way as to hamper the dissemination
of knowledge among the people and thereby impedes national judgment
and action."
-- Albert Einstein, statement for a conference of the Emergency Civil Liberties
Committee, March 13, 1954
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"To punish me for my contempt for authority, Fate has made me an
authority myself."
-- Albert Einstein, aphorism for a friend, September 18, 1930
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often
think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in
terms of music.... I get most joy in life out of music."
-- Albert Einstein, from an interview, Saturday Evening Post, October 26, 1929
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"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."
-- Albert Einstein, in a statement to the War Resisters International, Lyons, France,
1931
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
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"Personally, I experience the greatest degree of pleasure in having
contact with works of art. They furnish me with happy feelings of an intensity
that I cannot derive from other sources."
-- Albert Einstein, quoted in Moszkowski, Conversations with Einstein 1920
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice, ed., Princeton, 2000)
"Never regard your study as a duty, but as the enviable opportunity
to learn the liberating influence of beauty for your own personal
joy and for the profit of the community to which your later work
will belong."
-- Albert Einstein, in the Princeton University freshman publication, The
Dink, December 1933
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice, ed., Princeton, 2000)
"The Lord God is subtle, but malicious he is not. (In the original
German, `Raffiniert ist der Herr Gott, aber boshaft ist Er nicht.')"
-- Albert Einstein, originally said to Princeton University mathematics professor
Oscar Veblen, May 1921
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"A life directed chiefly toward the fulfillment of personal desires
will sooner or later always lead to bitter disappointment."
-- Albert Einstein, to L. Lee, January 16, 1954
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice, ed., Princeton, 2000)
"Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by
understanding. You cannot subjugate a nation forcibly unless you
wipe out every man, woman, and child. Unless you wish to use such
drastic measures, you must find a way of settling your disputes
without resort to arms."
-- Albert Einstein, from "Militant Pacifism," in Cosmic Religion (1931)
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice, ed., Princeton, 2000)
"Organized religion may regain some of the respect it lost in the
last war if it dedicates itself to mobilizing the goodwill and
energy of its followers against the rising tide of illiberalism."
-- Albert Einstein, New York Times, April 30, 1934
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice, ed., Princeton, 2000)
"My direct path to the special theory of relativity was mainly
determined by the conviction that the electromotive force induced in
a conductor moving in a magnetic field is nothing other than an
electric field."
-- Albert Einstein, read at a celebration of the centennial of Albert Michelson's
birth, December 19, 1952
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"If God created the world, his primary concern was certainly not to
make its understanding easy for us."
-- Albert Einstein, to David Bohm, February 10, 1954
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"My position concerning God is that of an agnostic. I am convinced
that a vivid consciousness of the primary importance of moral
principles for the betterment and ennoblement of life does not need
the idea of a law-giver, especially a law-giver who works on the
basis of reward and punishment."
-- Albert Einstein, to M. Berkowitz, October 25, 1950
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"Professionally, scientists and mathematicians are strictly
international-minded and guard carefully against any unfriendly
measures taken against their colleagues living in hostile foreign
countries. Historians and philologists, on the other hand, are
chauvinistic hotheads."
-- Albert Einstein, to H.A. Lorentz, August 2, 1915
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"The theory of relativity is nothing but another step in the
centuries-old evolution of our science, one which preserves the
relationships discovered in the past, deepening their insights and
adding new ones."
-- Albert Einstein, in an unpublished manuscript, ca. 1920
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"The scientist finds his reward in what Henri Poincare calls the joy
of comprehension, and not in the possibilities of application to
which any discovery may lead."
-- Albert Einstein, from the epilogue to Planck, (1932)
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"A theory is the more impressive the greater the simplicity of its
premises, the more different kinds of things it relates, and the
more extended its area of applicability."
-- Albert Einstein, from "Autobiographical Notes," in Schilpp, Albert Einstein:
Philospher-Scientist
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"With fame I become more and more stupid, which of course is a very
common phenomenon."
-- Albert Einstein, to Heinrich Zangger, December 1919
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"I believe that a simple and unassuming life is good for everybody,
both physically and mentally."
-- Albert Einstein, from "What I Believe," Forum and Century 84, (1930)
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"It is not so very important for a person to learn facts. For that
he does not really need college. He can learn them from books. The
value of an education in a liberal arts college is not the learning
of many facts, but the training of the mind to think something that
cannot be learned from textbooks."
-- Albert Einstein, on Thomas Edison's opinion that a college education is
useless, 1921
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"I always think of Michelson as the artist in science. His greatest
joy seemed to come from the beauty of the experiment itself and the
elegance of the method employed."
-- Albert Einstein, to Robert Shankland, September 17, 1953
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"When a blind beetle crawls over the surface of a curved branch, it
doesn't notice that the track it has covered is indeed curved. I
was lucky enough to notice what the beetle didn't notice."
-- Albert Einstein, to his son Edward, 1922. Quoted in Max Flueckiger, Albert
Einstein in Bern
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"I have warm admiration for American institutes of scientific
research. We are unjust in attempting to ascribe the increasing
superiority of American research work exclusively to superior
wealth; devotion, patience, a spirit of comradeship, and a talent
for cooperation play an important part in its success."
-- Albert Einstein, from an interview, Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant, 1921
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"The aim [of education] must be the training of independently acting
and thinking individuals who, however, see in the service to the
community their highest life achievement."
-- Albert Einstein, address at a convention at SUNY Albany, October 15, 1936
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"Madame Curie is very intelligent but as cold as a herring, meaning
that she lacks all feelings of joy and sorrow. Almost the only way
she expresses her feelings is to rail against things she doesn't
like. And she has a daughter who is even worse -- like a grenadier.
This daughter is also very gifted."
-- Albert Einstein, to Elsa Loewenthal, ca. August 11, 1913
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"I believe that Gandhi's views were the most enlightened among all of
the political men of our time. We should strive to do things in his
spirit; not to use violence in fighting for our cause, but by
nonparticipation in what we believe is evil."
-- Albert Einstein, from a United Nations Radio interview, June 16, 1950
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"Music does not influence research work, but both are
nourished by the same sort of longing, and they complement each
other in the release they offer."
-- Albert Einstein, to Paul Plaut, October 23, 1928
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"The more a country makes military weapons, the more insecure it
becomes: if you have weapons, you become a target for attack."
-- Albert Einstein, from a conversation with M. Aram, January 1953
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has
merely made more urgent the necessary solving of an existing one.
One could say it has affected us quantitatively, not qualitatively."
-- Albert Einstein, from "Atomic War or Peace," Atlantic Monthly, November
1945
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"The pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, an almost fanatical love
of justice, and the desire for personal independence--these are the
features of the Jewish tradition which make me thank my lucky stars
that I belong to it."
-- Albert Einstein, from "Jewish Ideals," in Mein Weltbild (1934)
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
(On Planck) "He was one of the finest people I have ever known... but
he really did not understand physics, [because] during the eclipse
of 1919 he stayed up all night to see if it would confirm the
bending of light by the gravitational field. If he had
really understood the general theory of relativity, he would
have gone to bed the way I did."
-- Albert Einstein, quoted by Ernst Straus, in French, Einstein: A Centenary
Volume
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
(on Heike Kamerlingh-Onnes) "A life has ended that will always remain
a role model for future generations.... No other person have I
known for whom duty and joy were one and the same. This was the
reason for his harmonious life."
-- Albert Einstein, to the Dutch physicist's widow, February 25, 1926
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"By academic freedom I understand the right to search for truth and
to publish and teach what one holds to be true. This right also
implies a duty: one must not conceal any part of what one has
recognized to be true. It is evident that any restriction of
academic freedom acts in such a way as to hamper the dissemination
of knowledge among the people and thereby impedes national judgment
and action."
-- Albert Einstein, statement for a conference of the Emergency Civil Liberties
Committee, March 13, 1954
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"To punish me for my contempt for authority, Fate has made me an
authority myself."
-- Albert Einstein, aphorism for a friend, September 18, 1930
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often
think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in
terms of music.... I get most joy in life out of music."
-- Albert Einstein, from an interview, Saturday Evening Post, October 26, 1929
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"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."
-- Albert Einstein, in a statement to the War Resisters International, Lyons, France,
1931
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
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"Personally, I experience the greatest degree of pleasure in having
contact with works of art. They furnish me with happy feelings of an intensity
that I cannot derive from other sources."
-- Albert Einstein, quoted in Moszkowski, Conversations with Einstein 1920
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice, ed., Princeton, 2000)
"Never regard your study as a duty, but as the enviable opportunity
to learn the liberating influence of beauty for your own personal
joy and for the profit of the community to which your later work
will belong."
-- Albert Einstein, in the Princeton University freshman publication, The
Dink, December 1933
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice, ed., Princeton, 2000)
"The Lord God is subtle, but malicious he is not. (In the original
German, `Raffiniert ist der Herr Gott, aber boshaft ist Er nicht.')"
-- Albert Einstein, originally said to Princeton University mathematics professor
Oscar Veblen, May 1921
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"A life directed chiefly toward the fulfillment of personal desires
will sooner or later always lead to bitter disappointment."
-- Albert Einstein, to L. Lee, January 16, 1954
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice, ed., Princeton, 2000)
"Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by
understanding. You cannot subjugate a nation forcibly unless you
wipe out every man, woman, and child. Unless you wish to use such
drastic measures, you must find a way of settling your disputes
without resort to arms."
-- Albert Einstein, from "Militant Pacifism," in Cosmic Religion (1931)
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice, ed., Princeton, 2000)
"Organized religion may regain some of the respect it lost in the
last war if it dedicates itself to mobilizing the goodwill and
energy of its followers against the rising tide of illiberalism."
-- Albert Einstein, New York Times, April 30, 1934
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice, ed., Princeton, 2000)
"If God created the world, his primary concern was certainly not to
make its understanding easy for us."
-- Albert Einstein, to David Bohm, February 10, 1954
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"My position concerning God is that of an agnostic. I am convinced
that a vivid consciousness of the primary importance of moral
principles for the betterment and ennoblement of life does not need
the idea of a law-giver, especially a law-giver who works on the
basis of reward and punishment."
-- Albert Einstein, to M. Berkowitz, October 25, 1950
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"Professionally, scientists and mathematicians are strictly
international-minded and guard carefully against any unfriendly
measures taken against their colleagues living in hostile foreign
countries. Historians and philologists, on the other hand, are
chauvinistic hotheads."
-- Albert Einstein, to H.A. Lorentz, August 2, 1915
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"The theory of relativity is nothing but another step in the
centuries-old evolution of our science, one which preserves the
relationships discovered in the past, deepening their insights and
adding new ones."
-- Albert Einstein, in an unpublished manuscript, ca. 1920
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"The scientist finds his reward in what Henri Poincare calls the joy
of comprehension, and not in the possibilities of application to
which any discovery may lead."
-- Albert Einstein, from the epilogue to Planck, (1932)
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"A theory is the more impressive the greater the simplicity of its
premises, the more different kinds of things it relates, and the
more extended its area of applicability."
-- Albert Einstein, from "Autobiographical Notes," in Schilpp, Albert Einstein:
Philospher-Scientist
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"With fame I become more and more stupid, which of course is a very
common phenomenon."
-- Albert Einstein, to Heinrich Zangger, December 1919
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"I believe that a simple and unassuming life is good for everybody,
both physically and mentally."
-- Albert Einstein, from "What I Believe," Forum and Century 84, (1930)
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"It is not so very important for a person to learn facts. For that
he does not really need college. He can learn them from books. The
value of an education in a liberal arts college is not the learning
of many facts, but the training of the mind to think something that
cannot be learned from textbooks."
-- Albert Einstein, on Thomas Edison's opinion that a college education is
useless, 1921
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"I always think of Michelson as the artist in science. His greatest
joy seemed to come from the beauty of the experiment itself and the
elegance of the method employed."
-- Albert Einstein, to Robert Shankland, September 17, 1953
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"When a blind beetle crawls over the surface of a curved branch, it
doesn't notice that the track it has covered is indeed curved. I
was lucky enough to notice what the beetle didn't notice."
-- Albert Einstein, to his son Edward, 1922. Quoted in Max Flueckiger, Albert
Einstein in Bern
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"I have warm admiration for American institutes of scientific
research. We are unjust in attempting to ascribe the increasing
superiority of American research work exclusively to superior
wealth; devotion, patience, a spirit of comradeship, and a talent
for cooperation play an important part in its success."
-- Albert Einstein, from an interview, Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant, 1921
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"The aim [of education] must be the training of independently acting
and thinking individuals who, however, see in the service to the
community their highest life achievement."
-- Albert Einstein, address at a convention at SUNY Albany, October 15, 1936
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"Madame Curie is very intelligent but as cold as a herring, meaning
that she lacks all feelings of joy and sorrow. Almost the only way
she expresses her feelings is to rail against things she doesn't
like. And she has a daughter who is even worse -- like a grenadier.
This daughter is also very gifted."
-- Albert Einstein, to Elsa Loewenthal, ca. August 11, 1913
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"I believe that Gandhi's views were the most enlightened among all of
the political men of our time. We should strive to do things in his
spirit; not to use violence in fighting for our cause, but by
nonparticipation in what we believe is evil."
-- Albert Einstein, from a United Nations Radio interview, June 16, 1950
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"Music does not influence research work, but both are
nourished by the same sort of longing, and they complement each
other in the release they offer."
-- Albert Einstein, to Paul Plaut, October 23, 1928
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"The more a country makes military weapons, the more insecure it
becomes: if you have weapons, you become a target for attack."
-- Albert Einstein, from a conversation with M. Aram, January 1953
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has
merely made more urgent the necessary solving of an existing one.
One could say it has affected us quantitatively, not qualitatively."
-- Albert Einstein, from "Atomic War or Peace," Atlantic Monthly, November
1945
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
"The pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, an almost fanatical love
of justice, and the desire for personal independence--these are the
features of the Jewish tradition which make me thank my lucky stars
that I belong to it."
-- Albert Einstein, from "Jewish Ideals," in Mein Weltbild (1934)
(source: The Expanded Quotable Einstein A. Calaprice,
ed., Princeton, 2000)
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