“Knowledge exists in two forms - lifeless, stored in books, and alive, in the consciousness of men. The second form of existence is after all the essential one; the first, indispensable as it may be, occupies only an inferior position.”
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Albert Einstein
“I want to go when I want. It is tasteless to prolong life artificially. I have done my share, it is time to go. I will do it elegantly.”
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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
“The most aggravating thing about the younger generation is that I no longer belong to it.”
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Albert Einstein
“Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.”
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Albert Einstein
“The true value of a human being can be found in the degree to which he has attained liberation from the self.”
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Albert Einstein
“If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.”
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Albert Einstein
“One had to cram all this stuff into one's mind for the examinations, whether one liked it or not. This coercion had such a deterring effect on me that, after I had passed the final examination, I found the consideration of any scientific problems distasteful to me for an entire year.”
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Albert Einstein
“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.”
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Albert Einstein
“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery each day.
—"Old Man's Advice to Youth: 'Never Lose a Holy Curiosity.'"
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Albert Einstein
“Never do anything against conscience, even if the state demands it.”
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Albert Einstein
“Be a loner. That gives you time to wonder, to search for the truth. Have holy curiosity. Make your life worth living.”
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Albert Einstein
“La vie c’est comme la bicyclette : quand on arrête de pédaler on tombe.”
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Albert Einstein
“My sense of god is my sense of wonder about the universe.”
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Albert Einstein