EINSTEIN

Wisdom, Sayings & Musings

THE ETERNAL INFERNAL CONUNDRUM EXPLAINED.

E = mc2 the formula herewith busted down.

E = mc2
mc2 = Hammer
Hammer = mc Hammer
mc Hammer = You can`t touch this!

.MATHEMATICS.


: If A equals success, then the formula is: A = X + Y + Z, X is work. Y is play. Z is keep your mouth shut.

: Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master. For this reason mastery demands all of a person.

: People love chopping wood. In this activity one immediately sees results.

: Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.

.CREATIVITY.


: The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.

: Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited.

: I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination.

: When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than any talent for abstract, positive thinking.

: The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.

: To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science.

: True art is characterized by an irresistible urge in the creative artist.

: The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind.

: It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.

.RELIGION.


: Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish.

: Do you believe in immortality? No, and one life is enough for me.

: It was the experience of mystery - even if mixed with fear - that engendered religion.

: Morality is of the highest importance - but for us, not for God.

: My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.

: Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

: All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree.

.HUMAN NATURE.

: It is easier to denature plutonium than to denature the evil spirit of man.

: It is only to the individual that a soul is given.

: Joy in looking and comprehending is nature's most beautiful gift.

: Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.

: Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.

:Without deep reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people.

: The environment is everything that isn't me.

: The value of a man should be seen in what he gives and not in what he is able to receive.

: People love chopping wood. In this activity one immediately sees results.

: We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.

: Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.

: Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.

: Solitude is painful when one is young, but delightful when one is more mature.

: Small is the number of people who see with their eyes and think with their minds.

: The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.

: The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there's no risk of accident for someone who's dead.

: We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.

: We cannot despair of humanity, since we ourselves are human beings.

: 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.

: The high destiny of the individual is to serve rather than to rule.

: If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.

: All these primary impulses, not easily described in words, are the springs of man's actions.

.LIFE.


: A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy?

: Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.

: Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.

: Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.

: I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity.

: Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted.
: Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.

: Human beings must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.

: I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for everyone, best both for the body and the mind.

: I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it.

: I have just got a new theory of eternity.

: Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.

: Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.

: There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.

: The devil has put a penalty on all things we enjoy in life. Either we suffer in health or we suffer in soul or we get fat.

.LOVE.


: Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves.

: Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.

:Love is a better teacher than duty.

: When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That's relativity.

: Without deep reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people.

.NATURE.


: Occurrences in this domain are beyond the reach of exact prediction because of the variety of factors in operation, not because of any lack of order in nature.

: Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.

: The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.

.POLITICS.


: An empty stomach is not a good political adviser.

: Any fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius-and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.

: Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism - how passionately I hate them!

: All these constructions and the laws connecting them can be arrived at by the principle of looking for the mathematically simplest concepts and the link between them.

: Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.

: Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced.

: Politics is for the present, but an equation is for eternity.

: Perfection of means and confusion of ends seem to characterize our age.

: The attempt to combine wisdom and power has only rarely been successful and then only for a short while.

: The hardest thing to understand in the world is the income tax.

: We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.

: The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one.


.RELATIVITY.

: The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.

: The faster you go, the shorter you are.

: The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.

: There is no logical way to the discovery of these elemental laws. There is only the way of intuition, which is helped by a feeling for the order lying behind the appearance.

.SCIENCE.


: Concern for man and his fate must always form the chief interest of all technical endeavours.

: Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations.
If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts.

: If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research,would it?

: Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

: It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.

: It should be possible to explain the laws of physics to a barmaid.

: It stands to the everlasting credit of science that by acting on the human mind it has overcome man's insecurity before himself and before nature.

: Most of the fundamental ideas of science are essentially simple, and may, as a rule, be expressed in a language comprehensible to everyone.

: Most people say that is it is the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are wrong: it is character.

: The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.

: The more success the quantum theory has, the sillier it looks.

: Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it.

: The process of scientific discovery is, in effect, a continual flight from wonder.

: To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science.

: The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.

:Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal.

: The grand aim of all science is to cover the greatest number of empirical facts by logical deduction from the smallest number of hypotheses or axioms.

.WAR.


: I am not only a pacifist but a militant pacifist. I am willing to fight for peace. Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war.

: I do not believe that civilization will be wiped out in a war fought with the atomic bomb. Perhaps two-thirds of the people of the earth will be killed.

: I do not know with what weapons World War 3 will be fought, but World War 4 will be fought with sticks and stones.

: It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.

: You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.

: Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.

: The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.

.TRUTH.


: If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.
In matters of truth and justice, there is no difference between large and small problems, for issues concerning the treatment of people are all the same.

: Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either.

: Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.

: Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.

: The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.

.THINKING AND KNOWLEDGE.


: He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.

: Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited.

: I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.

: I never think of the future - it comes soon enough.

: A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.

: Information is not knowledge.

: It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.

: Keep on sowing your seed, for you never know which will grow - perhaps it all will.

: Knowledge of what is does not open the door directly to what should be.

: Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.

: Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.

: Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.

: Memory is deceptive because it is colored by today's events.

: No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.

: Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.

: When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than any talent for abstract, positive thinking.

: You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created.

: The only source of knowledge is experience.

: The gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.

: The important thing is not to stop questioning.

: The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.

: The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.

: The only real valuable thing is intuition.

: There comes a time when the mind takes a higher plane of knowledge but can never prove how it got there.

: Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.

.MUSINGS AND MISCELLANEOUS.

: As far as I'm concerned, I prefer silent vice to ostentatious virtue.

: Anger dwells only in the bosom of fools.

: Everything should be made as simple as it is, but not simpler.

: If I had only known, I would have been a locksmith.

: Intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them.