“Strange is our situation here upon earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to a divine purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: That we are here for the sake of other men —above all for those upon whose smile and well-being our own happiness depends, for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy. Many times a day, I realize how much my outer and inner life is built upon the labors of people, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received and am still receiving.”
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Albert Einstein
“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 languages. The child knows that someone must have written those books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the 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.”
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Albert Einstein
“I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves -- this critical basis I call the ideal of a pigsty. The ideals that have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth. Without the sense of kinship with men of like mind, without the occupation with the objective world, the eternally unattainable in the field of art and scientific endeavors, life would have seemed empty to me. The trite objects of human efforts -- possessions, outward success, luxury -- have always seemed to me contemptible.”
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Albert Einstein
“Come si può mettere la Nona di Beethoven in un diagramma cartesiano? Ci sono delle realtà che non sono quantificabili. L'universo non è i miei numeri: è pervaso tutto dal mistero. Chi non ha il senso del mistero è un uomo mezzo morto.”
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Albert Einstein
“Only those who attempt the absurd can achieve the impossible.”
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Albert Einstein
“Deux choses sont infinies : l’Univers et la bêtise humaine. Mais, en ce qui concerne l’Univers, je n’en ai pas encore acquis la certitude absolue.”
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Albert Einstein
“There are two means of refuge from the misery of life - music and cats.”
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Albert Einstein
“Joy in looking and comprehending is nature's most beautiful gift.”
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Albert Einstein
“Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death.”
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Albert Einstein
“On the occasion of Mahatma Gandhi's 70th birthday. "Generations to come, it may well be, will scarce believe that such a man as this one ever in flesh and blood walked upon this Earth.”
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Albert Einstein
“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.”
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Albert Einstein
“Combinatory play seems to be the essential feature in productive thought.”
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Albert Einstein
“To dwell on the things that depress or anger us does not help in overcoming them. One must knock them down alone.”
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Albert Einstein