“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
“The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man's image; so that there can be no church whose central teachings are based on it. Hence it is precisely among the heretics of every age that we find men who were filled with this highest kind of religious feeling and were in many cases regarded by their contemporaries as atheists, sometimes also as saints. Looked at in this light, men like Democritus, Francis of Assisi, and Spinoza are closely akin to one another.”
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Albert Einstein
“We experience ourselves our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us.”
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Albert Einstein
“You are right in speaking of the moral foundations of science, but you cannot turn around and speak of the scientific foundations of morality.”
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Albert Einstein
“My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.”
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Albert Einstein
“The gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.”
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Albert Einstein
“Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master. For this reason mastery demands all of a person.”
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Albert Einstein
“I think 99 times and find nothing. I stop thinking, swim in silence, and the truth comes to me.”
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Albert Einstein
“A person starts to live when he can live outside himself.”
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Albert Einstein
“The only sure way to avoid making mistakes is to have no new ideas.”
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Albert Einstein
“Combinatory play seems to be the essential feature in productive thought.”
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Albert Einstein
“Possessions, outward success, publicity, luxury - to me these have always been contemptible. I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for everyone, best for both the body and the mind.”
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Albert Einstein
“Since the mathematicians have invaded the theory of relativity I do not understand it myself any more.”
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Albert Einstein
“Even on the most solemn occasions I got away without wearing socks and hid that lack of civilization in high boots”
―
Albert Einstein
