“A theory is something nobody believes, except the person who made it. An experiment is something everybody believes, except the person who made it.”
―
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.”
―
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
“The mind that opens to a new idea never comes back to its original size.”
―
Albert Einstein
“I assert that the cosmic religious experience is the strongest and the noblest driving force behind scientific research.”
―
Albert Einstein
“Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth. (said of Mahatma Gandhi)”
―
Albert Einstein
“De werkelijkheid is louter illusie, maar wel een hardnekkige.”
―
Albert Einstein
“True art is characterized by an irresistible urge in the creative artist.”
―
Albert Einstein
“The most aggravating thing about the younger generation is that I no longer belong to it.”
―
Albert Einstein
“I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity.”
―
Albert Einstein
“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”
―
Albert Einstein
“Only those who attempt the absurd can achieve the impossible.”
―
Albert Einstein
“Still there are moments when one feels free from one’s own identification with human limitations and inadequacies. At such moments, one imagines that one stands on some spot of a small planet, gazing in amazement at the cold yet profoundly moving beauty of the eternal, the unfathomable: life and death flow into one, and there is neither evolution nor destiny; only being.”
―
Albert Einstein
“Since the mathematicians have invaded the theory of relativity I do not understand it myself any more.”
―
Albert Einstein
