“Through the reading of popular scientific books I soon reached the conviction that much in the stories of the Bible could not be true. The consequence was a positively fanatic orgy of freethinking coupled with the impression that youth is intentionally being deceived by the state through lies; it was a crushing impression. Mistrust of every kind of authority grew out of this experience, a skeptical attitude toward the convictions that were alive in any specific social environment - an attitude that has never again left me.
- Albert Einstein, Autobiographical Notes, edited by Paul Arthur Schilpp”
―
Albert Einstein
“This change in the conception of reality is the most profound and the most fruitful that physics has experienced since the time of Newton.
―
Albert Einstein
“The woman who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. The woman who walks alone is likely to find herself in places no one has ever been before.”
―
Albert Einstein
“There is far too great a disproportion between what one is and what others think one is, or at least what they say they think one is.”
―
Albert Einstein
“Keep on sowing your seed, for you never know which will grow - perhaps it all will.”
―
Albert Einstein
“I was barked at by numerous dogs who are earning their food guarding ignorance and superstition for the benefit of those who profit from it. Then there are the fanatical atheists whose intolerance is of the same kind as the intolerance of the religious fanatics and comes from the same source. They are like slaves who are still feeling the weight of their chains which they have thrown off after hard struggle. They are creatures who—in their grudge against the traditional "opium of the people"—cannot bear the music of the spheres. The Wonder of nature does not become smaller because one cannot measure it by the standards of human morals and human aims.”
―
Albert Einstein
“It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty. To the contrary, I believe it would be possible to rob even a healthy beast of prey of its voraciousness, if it were possible, with the aid of a whip, to force the beast to devour continuously, even when not hungry.”
―
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.”
―
Albert Einstein
“The tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he lives.”
―
Albert Einstein
“Striving for social justice is the most valuable thing to do in life.”
―
Albert Einstein
“PARAPHRASE: Genius is not that you are smarter than everyone else. It is that you are ready to receive the inspiration.”
―
Albert Einstein
“Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.”
―
Albert Einstein
“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
“I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music”
―
Albert Einstein
