530 quotes
Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character; it becomes lack of power to act with courage proportionate to danger. All this must lead to the destruction of our intellectual life unless the danger summons up strong personalities able to fill the lukewarm and discouraged with new strength and resolution.
Certain it is that a conviction, akin to religious feeling, of the rationality or intelligibility of the world lies behind all scientific work of a higher order. ... This firm belief, a belief bound up with deep feeling, in a superior mind that reveals itself in the world of experience, represents my conception of God.
Essays in Science (1934)
I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own — a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotisms.
Mein Weltbild (My World-view) (1931)
Princeton is a wonderful little spot, a quaint and ceremonious village of puny demigods on stilts... Here the people who compose what is called 'society' enjoy even less freedom than their counterparts in Europe. Yet they seem unaware of this restriction, since their way of life tends to inhibit personality development from childhood.
Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas. One seeks the most general ideas of operation which will bring together in simple, logical and unified form the largest possible circle of formal relationships. In this effort toward logical beauty spiritual formulas are discovered necessary for the deeper penetration into the laws of nature.
Obituary for Emmy Noether (1935)
A human being is a part of the whole, called by us "Universe", a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest — a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. The striving to free oneself from this delusion is the one issue of true religion. Not to nourish the delusion but to try to overcome it is the way to reach the attainable measure of peace of mind.
People like you and I, though mortal of course like everyone else, do not grow old no matter how long we live...[We] never cease to stand like curious children before the great mystery into which we were born.
As long as I have any choice, I will only stay in a country where political liberty, tolerance, and equality of all citizens before the law prevail... These conditions do not obtain in Germany at the present time.
I was originally supposed to become an [Electrical] engineer but the thought of having to expend my creative energy on things that make practical everyday life even more refined, with a loathsome capital gain as the goal, was unbearable to me.
The ideals which have always shone before me and filled me with the joy of living are goodness, beauty, and truth. To make a goal of comfort or happiness has never appealed to me; a system of ethics built on this basis would be sufficient only for a herd of cattle.
I have only two rules which I regard as principles of conduct. The first is: Have no rules. The second is: Be independent of the opinion of others.
Wisehart interview (1930)
The traditional religions worry me. Their long history proves that they have not understood the meaning of the commandment: Thou shalt not kill. If we want to save this world from unimaginable destruction we should concentrate not on the faraway God, but on the heart of the individual.
Einstein and the Poet : In Search of the Cosmic Man (1983)
The hardest thing in the world to understand is income taxes.
Attributed
Nothing truly valuable arises from ambition or from a mere sense of duty; it stems rather from love and devotion towards men and towards objective things.
Attributed Albert Einstein: The Human Side (1979)
Falling in love is not at all the most stupid thing that people do — but gravitation cannot be held responsible for it.
Attributed Albert Einstein: The Human Side (1979)
The Wonder of nature does not become smaller because one cannot measure it by the standards of human moral and human aims.
Attributed Einstein and Religion (1999)
Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous.
Disputed
If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.
Misattributed Earliest attribution located is The Yogi and the Commissar by Arthur Koestler (1945)
Nuclear power is a hell of a way to boil water.
Misattributed
The world needs new moral impulses which, I'm afraid, won't come from the churches, heavily compromised as they have been throughout the centuries.
Attributed Einstein and the Poet (1983)