“Numerous are the academic chairs, but rare are wise and noble teachers. Numerous and large are the lecture halls, but far from numerous the young people who genuinely thirst for truth and justice. Numerous are the wares that nature produces by the dozen, but her choice products are few.
We all know that, so why complain? Was it not always thus and will it not always thus remain? Certainly, and one must take what nature gives as one finds it. But there is also such a thing as a spirit of the times, an attitude of mind characteristic of a particular generation, which is passed on from individual to individual and gives its distinctive mark to a society. Each of us has to his little bit toward transforming this spirit of the times.”
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Albert Einstein
“The mystical trend of our time, which shows itself particularly in the rampant growth of the so-called Theosophy and Spiritualism, is for me no more than a symptom of weakness and confusion. Since our inner experiences consist of reproductions, and combinations of sensory impressions, the concept of a soul without a body seem to me to be empty and devoid of meaning.
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Albert Einstein
“How many people are trapped in their everyday habits: part numb, part frightened, part indifferent? To have a better life we must keep choosing how we're living.”
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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)”
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Albert Einstein
“We are all life trying to live, among other life trying to live.”
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Albert Einstein
“Common to all these types is the anthropomorphic character of their conception of God. In general, only individuals of exceptional endowments, and exceptionally high-minded communities, rise to any considerable extent above this level. But there is a third stage of religious experience which belongs to all of them, even though it is rarely found in a pure form: I shall call it cosmic religious feeling. It is very difficult to elucidate this feeling to anyone who is entirely without it, especially as there is no anthropomorphic conception of God corresponding to it. The individual feels the futility of human desires and aims and the sublimity and marvelous order which reveal themselves both in nature and in the world of thought. Individual existence impresses him as a sort of prison and he wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole. The beginnings of cosmic religious feeling already appear at an early stage of development, e.g., in many of the Psalms of David and in some of the Prophets. Buddhism, as we have learned especially from the wonderful writings of Schopenhauer, contains a much stronger element of this.”
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Albert Einstein
“I was very pleased with your kind letter. Until now I never dreamed of being something like a hero. But since you've given me the nomination I feel that I am one.”
―
Albert Einstein
“Man usually avoids attributing cleverness to somebody else- unless it is an enemy”
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Albert Einstein
“Too many of us look upon Americans as dollar chasers. This is a cruel libel, even if it is reiterated thoughtlessly by the Americans themselves.”
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Albert Einstein
“The only thing that you absolutely have to know, is the location of the library.”
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Albert Einstein
“But science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration toward truth and understanding. This source of feeling, however, springs from the sphere of religion. To this there also belongs the faith in the possibility that the regulations valid for the world of existence are rational, that is, comprehensible to reason. I cannot conceive of a genuine scientist without that profound faith. The situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.”
―
Albert Einstein
“The development from a religion of fear to moral religion is a great step in peoples' lives.”
―
Albert Einstein
