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Albert Einstein

412 quotes

• “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”

  Albert Einstein (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Un homme heureux est trop content du présent pour trop se soucier de l'avenir.”

  Albert Einstein (1879–1955) first seen 1879 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Albert Einstein Mes Projets d'Avenir The Collected Papers 1: The Early Years, 1879-1902 1987 http://einsteinpapers.press.princeton.edu/vol1-doc/96 28 Princeton University Press 9780691084077}} {{citation Si la Lune alor…

• “Autoritätsdusel ist der größte Feind der Wahrheit.”

  Albert Einstein (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Lieber Habicht! / Es herrscht ein weihevolles Stillschweigen zwischen uns, so daß es mir fast wie eine sündige Entweihung vorkommt, wenn ich es jetzt durch ein wenig bedeutsames Gepappel unterbreche... / Was machen Sie denn, Sie eingefrorener Walfisch, Sie getrocknetes, eingebüchstes Stück Seele...?”

  Albert Einstein (1879–1955) first seen 1905 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Opening of a letter to his friend Conrad Habicht in which he describes his four revolutionary Annus Mirabilis papers (18 or 25 May 1905) Doc. 27

• “The mass of a body is a measure of its energy content.”

  Albert Einstein (1879–1955) first seen 1905 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Annalen der Physik 18, 639-641 (1905). Quoted in Concepts of Mass in Classical and Modern Physics by Max Jammer (1961), p. 177

• “We shall, therefore, assume the complete physical equivalence of a gravitational field and a corresponding acceleration of the reference system.”

  Albert Einstein (1879–1955) first seen 1907 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Statement of the equivalence principle in Yearbook of Radioactivity and Electronics (1907)

• “By a clock we understand anything characterized by a phenomenon passing periodically through identical phases so that we must assume, by the principle of sufficient reason, that all that happens in a given period is identical with all that happens in an arbitrary period.”

  Albert Einstein (1879–1955) first seen 1910 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Principe de relativité" Archives des sciences physiques et naturelles (1910) ser. 4. 29 5-28 pp. 125–244, as quoted by Julian Barbour, "The Nature of Time" (Mar 20, 2009) p. 7, arXiv:0903.3489.

• “Die Natur zeigt uns vom Löwen zwar nur den Schwanz. Aber es ist mir unzweifelhaft, dass der Löwe dazugehört, wenn er sich auch wegen seiner ungeheuren Dimensionen dem Blicke nicht unmittelbar offenbaren kann. Wir sehen ihn nur wie eine Laus, die auf ihm sitzt.”

  Albert Einstein (1879–1955) first seen 1914 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Letter to Heinrich Zangger (10 March 1914), quoted in The Curious History of Relativity by Jean Eisenstaedt (2006), p. 126.

• “Man begreift schwer beim Erleben dieser "großen Zeit", daß man dieser verrückten, verkommenen Spezies angehört, die sich Willensfreiheit zuschreibt. Wenn es doch irgendwo eine Insel der Wohlwollenden und Besonnenen gäbe! Da wollte ich auch glühender Patriot sein.”

  Albert Einstein (1879–1955) first seen 1914 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Letter to Paul Ehrenfest, early December 1914. Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, Vol. 8, Doc. 39. Quoted in The New Quotable Einstein by Alice Calaprice (2005), p. 3

• “Es ist bequem mit dem Einstein. Jedes Jahr widerruft er, was er das vorige Jahr geschrieben hat.”

  Albert Einstein (1879–1955) first seen 1915 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Letter to Paul Ehrenfest, 26 December 1915. Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, Vol. 8, Doc. 173.

• “...to the question whether or not the motion of the Earth in space can be made perceptible in terrestrial experiments. We have already remarked... that all attempts of this nature led to a negative result. Before the theory of relativity was put forward, it was difficult to become reconciled to this negative result.”

  Albert Einstein (1879–1955) first seen 1916 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Relativity – The Special and General Theory (1916), Part I: The Special Theory of Relativity, Experience and the Special Theory of Relativity

• “Unser ganzer gepriesener Fortschritt der Technik, überhaupt die Civilisation, ist der Axt in der Hand des pathologischen Verbrechers vergleichbar.”

  Albert Einstein (1879–1955) first seen 1917 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Letter to Heinrich Zangger (1917), as quoted in A Sense of the Mysterious: Science and the Human Spirit by Alan Lightman (2005), p. 110, and in Albert Einstein: A Biography by Albrecht Fölsing (1997), p. 399

• “The most beautiful fate of a physical theory is to point the way to the establishment of a more inclusive theory, in which it lives on as a limiting case.”

  Albert Einstein (1879–1955) first seen 1917 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: (1917) as quoted by , The Advancement of Science, and Its Burdens: the Jefferson Lecture and Other Essays (1986)

• “Ich habe auch manchen wissenschaftlichen Plan überlegt, während ich Dich im Kinderwagen spazieren schob!”

  Albert Einstein (1879–1955) first seen 1918 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Letter to his son Hans Albert Einstein (June 1918)

• “Geh Recht viel spazieren, dass Du Recht gesund wirst und lies nicht gar zu viel sondern spar Dir noch was auf bis Du gross bist.”

  Albert Einstein (1879–1955) first seen 1918 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Letter to his son Eduard Einstein (June 1918)

• “The physical world is real." That is supposed to be the fundamental hypothesis. What does "hypothesis" mean here? For me, a hypothesis is a statement, whose truth must be assumed for the moment, but whose meaning must be raised above all ambiguity. The above statement appears to me, however, to be, in itself, meaningless, as if one said: "The physical world is cock-a-doodle-do." It appears to me that the "real" is an intrinsically empty, meaningless category (pigeon hole), whose monstrous importance lies only in the fact that I can do certain things in it and not certain others.”

  Albert Einstein (1879–1955) first seen 1918 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Letter to Eduard Study, 25 Sept. 1918, in the Einstein Archive, Hebrew U., Jerusalem; translation in D. Howard, Perspectives on Science 1, 225 (1993).

• “I lie on the beach like a crocodile and let myself be roasted by the sun. I never see a newspaper and don't give a damn for what is called the world.”

  Albert Einstein (1879–1955) first seen 1918 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Letter to Max Born, 1918, from The Born-Einstein Letters: Friendship, Politics and Physics in Uncertain Times, Macmillan (2005 edition), pg 7.

• “Liebe Mutter! Heute eine freudige Nachricht. H. A. Lorentz hat mir telegraphiert, dass die englischen Expeditionen die Lichtablenkung an der Sonne wirklich bewiesen haben.”

  Albert Einstein (1879–1955) first seen 1919 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Postcard to his mother Pauline Einstein (1919)

• “Noch eine Art Anwendung des Relativitätsprinzips zum Ergötzen des Lesers: Heute werde ich in Deutschland als "deutscher Gelehrter", in England als "Schweizer Jude" bezeichnet; sollte ich aber einst in die Lage kommen, als "bète noire" präsentiert zu werden, dann wäre ich umgekehrt für die Deutschen ein „Schweizer Jude", für die Engländer ein "deutscher Gelehrter".”

  Albert Einstein (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The state of mind which enables a man to do work of this kind is akin to that of the religious worshiper or the lover; the daily effort comes from no deliberate intention or program, but straight from the heart.”

  Albert Einstein (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Man tries to make for himself in the fashion that suits him best a simplified and intelligible picture of the world; he then tries to some extent to substitute this cosmos of his for the world of experience, and thus to overcome it. This is what the painter, the poet, the speculative philosopher, and the natural scientist do, each in his own fashion. Each makes this cosmos and its construction the pivot of his emotional life, in order to find in this way the peace and security which he cannot find in the narrow whirlpool of personal experience.”

  Albert Einstein (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: As quoted in The Professor, the Institute, and DNA (1976) by Rene Dubos; also in The Great Influenza (2004) by John M. Barry

• “Wie lieb ich diesen edlen Mann Mehr als ich mit Worten sagen kann. Doch fürcht' ich, dass er bleibt allein Mit seinem strahlenden Heiligenschein.”

  Albert Einstein (1879–1955) first seen 1920 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Poem by Einstein on Spinoza (1920), as quoted in Einstein and Religion by Max Jammer, Princeton UP 1999, p. 43; original German manuscript: "Zu Spinozas Ethik".

• “We may assume the existence of an aether; only we must give up ascribing a definite state of motion to it, i.e. we must by abstraction take from it the last mechanical characteristic which Lorentz had still left it. ... But this ether may not be thought of as endowed with the quality characteristic of ponderable media, as consisting of parts which may be tracked through time. The idea of motion may not be applied to it.”

  Albert Einstein (1879–1955) first seen 1920 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: On the irrelevance of the luminiferous aether hypothesis to physical measurements, in an address at the University of Leiden (5 May 1920)

• “I am neither a German citizen nor do I believe in anything that can be described as a "Jewish faith." But I am a Jew and glad to belong to the Jewish people, though I do not regard it in any way as chosen.”

  Albert Einstein (1879–1955) first seen 1920 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Letter to Central Association of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith, 3 [5] April 1920, as quoted in Alice Calaprice, The Ultimate Quotable Einstein (2010), p. 195; citing Israelitisches Wochenblatt, 42 September 1920, …

• “In Lenin I honor a man, who in total sacrifice of his own person has committed his entire energy to realizing social justice. I do not find his methods advisable. One thing is certain, however: men like him are the guardians and renewers [Erneuerer] of mankind's conscience.”

  Albert Einstein (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Quoted in Einstein on Politics, Princeton University Press, 2013, ISBN 9781400848287.

• “Es ist das schönste Los einer physikalischen Theorie, wenn sie selbst zur Aufstellung einer umfassenden Theorie den Weg weist, in welcher sie als Grenzfall weiterlebt.”

  Albert Einstein (1879–1955) first seen 1920 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Über die spezielle und die allgemeine Relativitätstheorie (1920) Tr. Robert W. Lawson, Relativity: The Special and General Theory (1920) pp. 90-91.

• “Raffiniert ist der Herrgott, aber boshaft ist er nicht.”

  Albert Einstein (1879–1955) first seen 1921 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Remark made during Einstein's first visit to Princeton University (April 1921) as quoted in Einstein (1973) by R. W. Clark, Ch. 14. "God is slick, but he ain't mean" is a variant translation of this (1946) Unsourced var…

• “When a man after long years of searching chances on a thought which discloses something of the beauty of this mysterious universe, he should not therefore be personally celebrated. He is already sufficiently paid by his experience of seeking and finding. In science, moreover, the work of the individual is so bound up with that of his scientific predecessors and contemporaries that it appears almost as an impersonal product of his generation.”

  Albert Einstein (1879–1955) first seen 1921 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: From the story "The Progress of Science" in The Scientific Monthly edited by J. McKeen Cattell (June 1921), Vol. XII, No. 6. The story says that the comments were made at the annual meeting of the National Academy of Sc…

• “[I do not] carry such information in my mind since it is readily available in books. ...The value of a college education is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think.”

  Albert Einstein (1879–1955) first seen 1921 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: In response to not knowing the speed of sound as included in the Edison Test: New York Times (18 May 1921); Einstein: His Life and Times (1947) Philipp Frank, p. 185; Einstein, A Life (1996) by Denis Brian, p. 129; "Ein…

• “Insofern sich die Sätze der Mathematik auf die Wirklichkeit beziehen, sind sie nicht sicher, und insofern sie sicher sind, beziehen sie sich nicht auf die Wirklichkeit.”

  Albert Einstein (1879–1955) first seen 1921 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Geometrie and Erfahrung (1921) pp. 3-4 link.springer.com as cited by Karl Popper, The Two Fundamental Problems of the Theory of Knowledge (2014) Tr. Andreas Pickel, Ed. Troels Eggers Hansen.

• “I was sitting in a chair in the patent office at Bern when all of sudden a thought occurred to me: If a person falls freely he will not feel his own weight. I was startled. This simple thought made a deep impression on me. It impelled me toward a theory of gravitation.”

  Albert Einstein (1879–1955) first seen 1907 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Einstein in his Kyoto address (14 December 1922), talking about the events of "probably the 2nd or 3rd weeks" of October 1907, quoted in Why Did Einstein Put So Much Emphasis on the Equivalence Principle? by Dr. Robert …

• “I have come to believe that the motion of the Earth cannot be detected by any optical experiment.”

  Albert Einstein (1879–1955) first seen 1922 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: How I Created the Theory of Relativity, speech at Kyoto University, Japan, December 14, 1922, as cited in Physics Today, August, 1982.

• “May they not forget to keep pure the great heritage that puts them ahead of the West: the artistic configuration of life, the simplicity and modesty of personal needs, and the purity and serenity of the Japanese soul.”

  Albert Einstein (1879–1955) first seen 1922 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Comment made after a six-week trip to Japan in November-December 1922, published in Kaizo 5, no. 1 (January 1923), 339. Einstein Archive 36-477.1. Appears in The New Quotable Einstein by Alice Calaprice (2005), p. 269

• “Die Quantenmechanik ist sehr achtung-gebietend. Aber eine innere Stimme sagt mir, daß das doch nicht der wahre Jakob ist. Die Theorie liefert viel, aber dem Geheimnis des Alten bringt sie uns kaum näher. Jedenfalls bin ich überzeugt, daß der nicht würfelt.”

  Albert Einstein (1879–1955) first seen 1926 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Letter to Max Born (4 December 1926); The Born-Einstein Letters (translated by Irene Born) (Walker and Company, New York, 1971) .

• “Whether you can observe a thing or not depends on the theory which you use. It is the theory which decides what can be observed.”

  Albert Einstein (1879–1955) first seen 1926 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Objecting to the placing of observables at the heart of the new quantum mechanics, during Heisenberg's 1926 lecture at Berlin; related by Heisenberg, quoted in Unification of Fundamental Forces (1990) by Abdus Salam

• “Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the discernible concatenations, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion. To that extent I am, in point of fact, religious.”

  Albert Einstein (1879–1955) first seen 1927 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Response to atheist Alfred Kerr in the winter of 1927, who after deriding ideas of God and religion at a dinner party in the home of the publisher Samuel Fischer, had queried him "I hear that you are supposed to be deep…

• “Ich glaube an Spinoza's Gott, der sich in der gesetzlichen Harmonie des Seienden offenbart, nicht an einen Gott, der sich mit Schicksalen und Handlungen der Menschen abgibt.”

  Albert Einstein (1879–1955) first seen 1929 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: 24 April 1929 in response to the telegrammed question of New York's Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein: "Do you believe in God? Stop. Answer paid 50 words." Einstein replied in only 27 (German) words. The New York Times 25 Apri…

• “If A is success in life, then A = x + y + z. Work is x, play is y and z is keeping your mouth shut.”

  Albert Einstein (1879–1955) first seen 1929 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Said to Samuel J Woolf, Berlin, Summer 1929. Cited with additional notes in The Ultimate Quotable Einstein by Alice Calaprice and Freeman Dyson, Princeton UP (2010) p 230

• “I should unconditionally refuse every direct or indirect war service and try to induce my friends to adopt the same attitude, irrespective of the general opinion of the causes of war.”

  Albert Einstein (1879–1955) first seen 1929 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: As quoted in Einstein Would Refuse Any War Services No Matter What the Cause // Jewish Telegraphic Agency Bulletin, September 8, 1929

• “Science is international but its success is based on institutions, which are owned by nations. If therefore, we wish to promote culture we have to combine and to organize institutions with our own power and means.”

  Albert Einstein (1879–1955) first seen 1929 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: As quoted in [Albert Einstein, Letter "Einstein in Singapore." Manchester Guardian, October 12, 1929]

• “How can it be that mathematics, being, after all, a product of human thought which is independent of experience, is so admirably appropriate to the objects of reality? Is human reason, then, without experience, merely by taking thought, able to fathom the properties of real things?”

  Albert Einstein (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “One reason why mathematics enjoys special esteem, above all other sciences, is that its laws are absolutely certain and indisputable, while those of other sciences are to some extent debatable and in constant danger of being overthrown by newly discovered facts.”

  Albert Einstein (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The meaning of relativity has been widely misunderstood. Philosophers play with the word, like a child with a doll. Relativity, as I see it, merely denotes that certain physical and mechanical facts, which have been regarded as positive and permanent, are relative with regard to certain other facts in the sphere of physics and mechanics. It does not mean that everything in life is relative and that we have the right to turn the whole world mischievously topsy-turvy.”

  Albert Einstein (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “No man can visualize four dimensions, except mathematically ... I think in four dimensions, but only abstractly. The human mind can picture these dimensions no more than it can envisage electricity. Nevertheless, they are no less real than electro-magnetism, the force which controls our universe, within, and by which we have our being.”

  Albert Einstein (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing.”

  Albert Einstein (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Quoted in The Ultimate Quotable Einstein by Alice Calaprice (2010), p. 230

• “I refuse to make money out of my science. My laurel is not for sale like so many bales of cotton.”

  Albert Einstein (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “If I was not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music. ... I cannot tell if I would have done any creative work of importance in music, but I do know that I get most joy in life out of my violin.”

  Albert Einstein (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “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, just as the man who spends too much time in the theater is tempted to be content with living vicariously instead of living his own life.”

  Albert Einstein (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “We are inclined to overemphasize the material influences in history. The Russians especially make this mistake. Intellectual values and ethnic influences, tradition and emotional factors are equally important. If this were not the case, Europe would today be a federated state, not a madhouse of nationalism.”

  Albert Einstein (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “I am a determinist. As such, I do not believe in free will. The Jews believe in free will. They believe that man shapes his own life. I reject that doctrine philosophically. In that respect, I am not a Jew.”

  Albert Einstein (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

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