“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? Schopenhauer once said: Der Mensch kann was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will (Man can do what he will but he cannot will what he wills).”
―
Albert Einstein
“But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people--first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy.”
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Albert Einstein
“Life is sacred, that is to say, it is the supreme value, to which all other values are subordinate.”
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Albert Einstein
“I was barked at by numerous dogs who are earning their food guarding ignorance and superstition for the benefit of those who profit from it. 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. They are like slaves who are still feeling the weight of their chains which they have thrown off after hard struggle. They are creatures who—in their grudge against the traditional "opium of the people"—cannot bear the music of the spheres. The Wonder of nature does not become smaller because one cannot measure it by the standards of human morals and human aims.”
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Albert Einstein
“If a man aspires towards a righteous life, his first act of abstinence is from injury to animals.”
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Albert Einstein
“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.”
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Albert Einstein
“What really interests me is whether God had any choice in the creation of the world.”
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Albert Einstein
“Paper is to write things down that we need to remember. Our brains are used to think.”
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Albert Einstein
“One should not pursue goals that are easily achieved. One must develop an instinct for what one can just barely achieve through one’s greatest efforts.”
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Albert Einstein
“Communities tend to be guided less than individuals by conscience and a sense of responsibility. How much misery does this fact cause mankind! It is the source of wars and every kind of oppression, which fill the earth with pain, sighs and bitterness.”
―
Albert Einstein
“True art is characterized by an irresistible urge in the creative artist.”
―
Albert Einstein
“Of what is significant in one's own existence one is hardly aware, and it certainly should not bother the other fellow. What does a fish know about the water in which he swims all his life?”
―
Albert Einstein
“Morality is of the highest importance -- but for us, not for God.”
―
Albert Einstein
“If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?”
―
Albert Einstein
