“Student: Dr. Einstein, Aren't these the same questions as last year's [physics] final exam?
Dr. Einstein: Yes; But this year the answers are different.”
―
Albert Einstein
“In the view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human mind, am able to recognize, there are yet people who says there is no God. But what makes me really angry is that they quote me for support of such views. (The Expanded Quotable Einstein, Princeton University, page 214)”
―
Albert Einstein
“The health of society thus depends quite as much on the independence of the individuals composing it as on their close political cohesion.”
―
Albert Einstein
“The supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a simple datum of experience.”
―
Albert Einstein
“It is very difficult to explain this feeling to anyone who is entirely without it, especially as there is no anthropomorphic conception of God corresponding to it. The individual feels the nothingness of human desires and aims and the sublimity and marvelous order which reveal themselves both in Nature and in the world of though. He looks upon individual existence as a sort of prison and wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole.”
―
Albert Einstein
“The importance of C.F. Gauss for the development of modern physical theory and especially for the mathematical fundament of the theory of relativity is overwhelming indeed; also his achievement of the system of absolute measurement in the field of electromagnetism. In my opinion it is impossible to achieve a coherent objective picture of the world on the basis of concepts which are taken more or less from inner psychological experience.”
―
Albert Einstein
“Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.”
―
Albert Einstein
“The most aggravating thing about the younger generation is that I no longer belong to it.”
―
Albert Einstein
“Isn't it strange that I who have written only unpopular books should be such a popular fellow?”
―
Albert Einstein
“The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer.”
―
Albert Einstein
“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...
to Rabbi Herbert Goldstein (1929)”
―
Albert Einstein
“The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.”
―
Albert Einstein
“Strange is our situation here on Earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to divine a purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: that man is here for the sake of other men - above all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness depends.”
―
Albert Einstein