“Honestly, I cannot understand what people mean when they talk about the freedom of the human will. I have a feeling, for instance, that I will something or other; but what relation this has with freedom I cannot understand at all. I feel that I will to light my pipe and I do it; but how can I connect this up with the idea of freedom? What is behind the act of willing to light the pipe? Another act of willing? Schopenhauer once said: Der Mensch kann was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will (Man can do what he will but he cannot will what he wills).”
―
Albert Einstein
“The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.”
―
Albert Einstein
“The only justifiable purpose of political institutions is to ensure the unhindered development of the individual.”
―
Albert Einstein
“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.”
―
Albert Einstein
“If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things.”
―
Albert Einstein
“It is easier to denature plutonium than to denature the evil spirit of man.”
―
Albert Einstein
“This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of herd life, the military system, which I abhor... This plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed. Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them!”
―
Albert Einstein
“We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library, whose walls are covered to the ceiling with books in many different languages. The child knows that someone must have written those books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the the languages in which they are written. The child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books, a mysterious order, which it does not comprehend but only dimly suspects.”
―
Albert Einstein
“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”
―
Albert Einstein
“Do you really believe that the moon isn’t there when nobody looks?”
―
Albert Einstein
“Everyone must become their own person, however frightful that may be.”
―
Albert Einstein
“I don't pretend to understand the universe — it's much bigger than I am.”
―
Albert Einstein
“If I had known they were going to do this, I would have become a shoemaker.”
―
Albert Einstein
“Let every man judge according to his own standards, by what he has himself read, not by what others tell him.”
―
Albert Einstein
