Quotes from Albert Einstein

Excellence is doing a common thing in an uncommon way.

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

We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library, whose walls are covered to the ceiling with books in many different languages. The child knows that someone must have written those books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the the languages in which they are written. The child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books, a mysterious order, which it does not comprehend but only dimly suspects.

Out of clutter, find simplicity. From discord, find harmony. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.

It gives me great pleasure indeed to see the stubbornness of an incorrigible nonconformist warmly acclaimed.

How I wish that somewhere there existed an island for those who are wise and of good will.

You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat.

I believe that Gandhi's views were the most enlightened of all the political men in our time. We should strive to do things in his spirit: not to use violence in fighting for our cause, but by non-participation in anything you believe is evil.

Strange is our situation here on Earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to divine a purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: that man is here for the sake of other men - above all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness depends.

Be a loner. That gives you time to wonder, to search for the truth. Have holy curiosity. Make your life worth living.

As our circle of knowledge expands, so does the circumference of darkness surrounding it.

Small is the number of them that see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.

I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind... to Rabbi Herbert Goldstein (1929)

Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.

Intelligence is not the ability to store information, but to know where to find it.

You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother.

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

Our separation from each other is an optical illusion.

Everyone must become their own person, however frightful that may be.

Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That's relativity.

To punish me for my contempt for authority, fate made me an authority myself.

One cannot alter a condition with the same mind set that created it in the first place.

I am not a genius, I am just curious. I ask many questions. and when the answer is simple, then God is answering.

A society's competitive advantage will come not from how well its schools teach the multiplication and periodic tables, but from how well they stimulate imagination and creativity.