“I do not at all believe in human freedom in the philosophical sense... Schopenhauer’s saying, ‘A man can do what he wants, but not will what he wants,’ has been a very real inspiration to me since my youth; it has been a continual consolation in the face of life’s hardships, my own and others’, and an unfailing wellspring of tolerance. This realization mercifully mitigates the easily paralyzing sense of responsibility and prevents us from taking ourselves and other people too seriously; it is conducive to a view of life which, in part, gives humour its due.”

“No one does anything right in life, until they realize that they are making a mistake”

“You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.”

“A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy?”

“Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater.”

“I think and think for months and years, ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right.”

“Don't dream of being a good person, be a human being is valuable and gives value to life.”

“Ego=1/Knowledge " More the knowledge lesser the ego, lesser the knowledge more the ego.”

“I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.”

“This change in the conception of reality is the most profound and the most fruitful that physics has experienced since the time of Newton.

“Too many of us look upon Americans as dollar chasers. This is a cruel libel, even if it is reiterated thoughtlessly by the Americans themselves.”

“the only escape from the miseries of life are music and cats...”

“The tendencies we have mentioned are something new for America. They arose when, under the influence of the two World Wars and the consequent concentration of all forces on a military goal, a predominantly military mentality developed, which with the almost sudden victory became even more accentuated. The characteristic feature of this mentality is that people place the importance of what Bertrand Russell so tellingly terms “naked power” far above all other factors which affect the relations between peoples. The Germans, misled by Bismarck’s successes in particular, underwent just such a transformation of their mentality—in consequence of which they were entirely ruined in less than a hundred years. I must frankly confess that the foreign policy of the United States since the termination of hostilities has reminded me, sometimes irresistibly, of the attitude of Germany under Kaiser Wilhelm II, and I know that, independent of me, this analogy has most painfully occurred to others as well. It is characteristic of the military mentality that non-human factors (atom bombs, strategic bases, weapons of all sorts, the possession of raw materials, etc.) are held essential, while the human being, his desires and thoughts—in short, the psychological factors—are considered as unimportant and secondary. Herein lies a certain resemblance to Marxism, at least insofar as its theoretical side alone is kept in view. The individual is degraded to a mere instrument; he becomes “human materiel.” The normal ends of human aspiration vanish with such a viewpoint. Instead, the military mentality raises “naked power” as a goal in itself—one of the strangest illusions to which men can succumb.”

“When I was young I found out that the big toe always ends up making a hole in a sock. So I stopped wearing socks.”

“We know from daily life that we exist for other people first of all, for whose smiles and well-being our own happiness depends.”