“Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
―
Albert Einstein
“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”
―
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.”
―
Albert Einstein
“I do not believe in the God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil. My God created laws that take care of that. His universe is not ruled by wishful thinking, but by immutable laws.”
―
Albert Einstein
“I assert that the cosmic religious experience is the strongest and the noblest driving force behind scientific research.”
―
Albert Einstein
“I must be willing to give up what I am in order to become what I will be.”
―
Albert Einstein
“I never made one of my discoveries through the process of rational thinking”
―
Albert Einstein
“L'interesse per l'uomo in se stesso e per il suo destino deve sempre costituire l'obiettivo primario di tutti gli sforzi compiuti in campo tecnologico [...] affinché le creazioni della nostra mente possano rappresentare un bene e non una maledizione per l'umanità. Non scordatevelo mai, mentre siete alle prese con diagrammi ed equazioni."
(dal discorso tenuto nel 1931 agli studenti del California Institute of Technology)”
―
Albert Einstein
“In the view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human mind, am able to recognize, there are yet people who says there is no God. But what makes me really angry is that they quote me for support of such views. (The Expanded Quotable Einstein, Princeton University, page 214)”
―
Albert Einstein
“Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect, as well as for the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper.”
―
Albert Einstein
“The importance of C.F. Gauss for the development of modern physical theory and especially for the mathematical fundament of the theory of relativity is overwhelming indeed; also his achievement of the system of absolute measurement in the field of electromagnetism. In my opinion it is impossible to achieve a coherent objective picture of the world on the basis of concepts which are taken more or less from inner psychological experience.”
―
Albert Einstein