“When I am judging a theory, I ask myself whether, if I were God, I would have arranged the world in such a way.”
―
Albert Einstein
“Non possiamo risolvere i problemi con lo stesso tipo di pensiero che abbiamo usato quando li abbiamo creati.”
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Albert Einstein
“Do not grow old, no matter how long you live. Never cease to stand like curious children before the Great Mystery into which we were born.”
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Albert Einstein
“In my view, it is the most important function of art and science to awaken this religious feeling and keep it alive in those who are receptive to it.”
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Albert Einstein
“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”
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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
“Communities tend to be guided less than individuals by conscience and a sense of responsibility. How much misery does this fact cause mankind! It is the source of wars and every kind of oppression, which fill the earth with pain, sighs and bitterness.”
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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.”
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Albert Einstein
“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his 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. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
―
Albert Einstein
“The generalized theory of relativity has furnished still more remarkable results. This considers not only uniform but also accelerated motion. In particular, it is based on the impossibility of distinguishing an acceleration from the gravitation or other force which produces it. Three consequences of the theory may be mentioned of which two have been confirmed while the third is still on trial: (1) It gives a correct explanation of the residual motion of forty-three seconds of arc per century of the perihelion of Mercury. (2) It predicts the deviation which a ray of light from a star should experience on passing near a large gravitating body, the sun, namely, 1".7. On Newton's corpuscular theory this should be only half as great. As a result of the measurements of the photographs of the eclipse of 1921 the number found was much nearer to the prediction of Einstein, and was inversely proportional to the distance from the center of the sun, in further confirmation of the theory. (3) The theory predicts a displacement of the solar spectral lines, and it seems that this prediction is also verified.”
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Albert Einstein
“The formulation of the problem is often more essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skill.”
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Albert Einstein
“Student: Dr. Einstein, Aren't these the same questions as last year's [physics] final exam?
Dr. Einstein: Yes; But this year the answers are different.”
―
Albert Einstein