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If you don't take my words too seriously, I would say this: If we assume that all matter would disappear from the world, then, before relativity, one believed that space and time would continue existing in an empty world. But, according to the theory of relativity, if matter and its motion disappeared there would no longer be any space or time.

— Albert Einstein

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(1921) as quoted by Philipp Frank, Einstein, His Life and Times (1947) 1st edition, Ch. VIII, Sect. 5, p. 178. In response to the question by an American journalist: How could one explain the content of the relativity theory in a few sentences?

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More quotes by Albert Einstein

Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Albert Einstein (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.