“Scientific research is based on the idea that everything that takes place is determined by laws of nature, and therefore this holds for the action of people. For this reason, a research scientist will hardly be inclined to believe that events could be influenced by a prayer, i.e. by a wish addressed to a Supernatural Being.
- Albert Einstein, 1936, responding to a child who wrote and asked if scientists pray; quoted in: Albert Einstein: The Human Side, edited by Helen Dukas & Banesh Hoffmann”
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Albert Einstein
“A foolish faith in authority is the worst enemy of truth.”
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Albert Einstein
“How vile and despicable war seems to me! I would rather be hacked to pieces than take part in such an abominable business.”
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Albert Einstein
“It is this mythical, or rather symbolic, content of the religious traditions which is likely to come into conflict with science. This occurs whenever this religious stock of ideas contains dogmatically fixed statements on subjects which belong in the domain of science.”
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Albert Einstein
“One of the strongest motives that lead men to art and science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness, from the fetters of one's own ever-shifting desires. A finely tempered nature longs to escape from the personal life into the world of objective perception and thought.”
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Albert Einstein
“Organized people are just too lazy to go looking for what they want.”
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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
“You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother.”
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Albert Einstein
“The health of society thus depends quite as much on the independence of the individuals composing it as on their close political cohesion.”
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Albert Einstein
“When the number of factors coming into play in a phenomenological complex is too large scientific method in most cases fails. One need only think of the weather, in which case the prediction even for a few days ahead is impossible.”
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Albert Einstein
“Creating a new theory is not like destroying an old barn and erecting a skyscraper in its place. It is rather like climbing a mountain, gaining new and wider views, discovering unexpected connections between our starting points and its rich environment. But the point from which we started out still exists and can be seen, although it appears smaller and forms a tiny part of our broad view gained by the mastery of the obstacles on our adventurous way up.”
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Albert Einstein
“We never cease to stand like curious children before the great mystery into which we are born.”
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Albert Einstein
“True art is characterized by an irresistible urge in the creative artist.”
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Albert Einstein
“Problems cannot be solved with the same mind set that created them.”
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Albert Einstein