“I received your letter of June 10th. I have never talked to a Jesuit priest in my life and I am astonished by the audacity to tell such lies about me. From the viewpoint of a Jesuit priest I am, of course, and have always been an atheist.”
―
Albert Einstein
“The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this. These subtilised interpretations are highly manifold according to their nature and have almost nothing to do with the original text. For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions.”
―
Albert Einstein
“Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.”
―
Albert Einstein
“Aku Berpikir terus menerus berbulan bulan dan bertahun tahun, sembilan puluh sembilan kali dan kesimpulannya salah. Untuk yang keseratus aku benar.”
―
Albert Einstein
“The gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.”
―
Albert Einstein
“Jesus is too colossal for the pen of phrasemongers, however artful. No man can dispose of Christianity with a bon mot”
―
Albert Einstein
“Your question is the most difficult in the world. It is not a question I can answer simply with yes or no. I am not an Atheist. I do not know if I can define myself as a Pantheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. May I not reply with a parable? The human mind, no matter how highly trained, cannot grasp the universe. We are in the position of a little child, entering a huge library whose walls are covered to the ceiling with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written those books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books, a mysterious order, which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of the human mind, even the greatest and most cultured, toward God. We see a universe marvelously arranged, obeying certain laws, but we understand the laws only dimly. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that sways the constellations. I am fascinated by Spinoza's Pantheism. I admire even more his contributions to modern thought. Spinoza is the greatest of modern philosophers, because he is the first philosopher who deals with the soul and the body as one, not as two separate things.”
―
Albert Einstein
“The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there’s no risk of accident for someone who’s dead.
―
Albert Einstein
“As the area of light expands, so does the perimeter of darkness.”
―
Albert Einstein
“Development of Western science is based on two great achievements: the invention of the formal logical system (in Euclidean geometry) by the Greek philosophers, and the discovery of the possibility to find out causal relationships by systematic experiment (during the Renaissance). In my opinion, one has not to be astonished that the Chinese sages have not made these steps. The astonishing thing is that these discoveries were made at all.”
―
Albert Einstein
“Kalau mereka ingin menemuiku, aku ada disini. Kalau mereka ingin bertemu dengan pakaianku, bukalah lemariku dan tunjukkan pada mereka.”
―
Albert Einstein
“If something is in me which can be called religious, then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.”
―
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
“Numerous are the academic chairs, but rare are wise and noble teachers. Numerous and large are the lecture halls, but far from numerous the young people who genuinely thirst for truth and justice. Numerous are the wares that nature produces by the dozen, but her choice products are few.
We all know that, so why complain? Was it not always thus and will it not always thus remain? Certainly, and one must take what nature gives as one finds it. But there is also such a thing as a spirit of the times, an attitude of mind characteristic of a particular generation, which is passed on from individual to individual and gives its distinctive mark to a society. Each of us has to his little bit toward transforming this spirit of the times.”
―
Albert Einstein