“When I was a fairly precocious young man I became thoroughly impressed with the futility of the hopes and strivings that chase most men restlessly through life. Moreover, I soon discovered the cruelty of that chase, which in those years was much more carefully covered up by hypocrisy and glittering words than is the case today. By the mere existence of his stomach everyone was condemned to participate in that chase. The stomach might well be satisfied by such participation, but not man insofar as he is a thinking and feeling being.”
―
Albert Einstein
“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.”
―
Albert Einstein
“the scientist's religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is utterly insignificant reflection. This feeling is the guiding principle of his life and work, in so far as he succeeds in keeping himself from the shackles of selfish desire. It is beyond question closely akin to that which has possessed the religious geniuses of all ages.”
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Albert Einstein
“Common to all these types is the anthropomorphic character of their conception of God. In general, only individuals of exceptional endowments, and exceptionally high-minded communities, rise to any considerable extent above this level. But there is a third stage of religious experience which belongs to all of them, even though it is rarely found in a pure form: I shall call it cosmic religious feeling. It is very difficult to elucidate 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 futility of human desires and aims and the sublimity and marvelous order which reveal themselves both in nature and in the world of thought. Individual existence impresses him as a sort of prison and he wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole. The beginnings of cosmic religious feeling already appear at an early stage of development, e.g., in many of the Psalms of David and in some of the Prophets. Buddhism, as we have learned especially from the wonderful writings of Schopenhauer, contains a much stronger element of this.”
―
Albert Einstein
“ACADEMIC CHAIRS ARE MANY, but wise and noble teachers are few; lecture-rooms are numerous and large, but the number of young people who genuinely thirst after truth and justice is small.”
―
Albert Einstein
“If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.”
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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
“Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death.”
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Albert Einstein
“A theory is something nobody believes, except the person who made it. An experiment is something everybody believes, except the person who made it.”
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Albert Einstein
“Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love. How on earth can you explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love? Put your hand on a stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with that special girl for an hour and it seems like a minute. That's relativity.”
―
Albert Einstein
“It is important to foster individuality, for only the individual can produce the new ideas.”
―
Albert Einstein
“People like you and me never grow old. We never cease to stand like curious children before the great mystery into which we were born.”
―
Albert Einstein
“Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions.”
―
Albert Einstein
“No, this trick won't work... How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love? ”
―
Albert Einstein
“PARAPHRASE: Genius is not that you are smarter than everyone else. It is that you are ready to receive the inspiration.”
―
Albert Einstein
