Collected Quotes from Albert Einstein

February 25, 1999

Greetings,

Rishis of the Vedic times were virtuous and were also great scientists.

The greatest scientists of modern times are also religious philosophers

and they are the modern Rishis. Pure science and pure religion have

the same common goal to find TRUTH. Science uses total capacity of the

intellect to reach its goal. Religion goes beyond the limits of the

intellect. Great scientists are fully aware of the limitations of the

intellect and they seek the help of religion from time to time. The

quotes from Einstein displayed below illustrate the religious wisdom of

a scientific mind.

Ram Chandran

Burke, VA

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Collected Quotes from Albert Einstein

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"Any intelligent 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."

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."

"Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love."

"I want to know God's thoughts; the rest are details."

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

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

"The only real valuable thing is intuition."

"A person starts to live when he can live outside himself."

"I am convinced that He (God) does not play dice."

"God is subtle but he is not malicious."

"Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character."

"I never think of the future. It comes soon enough."

"The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility."

"Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing."

"Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind."

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

"Great spirits have often encountered violent opposition from weak

minds."

"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age

eighteen."

"Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living

at it."

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

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

"God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates

empirically."

"The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday

thinking."

"Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological

criminal."

"Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by

understanding."

"The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is

comprehensible."

"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used

when we created them."

"Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he

learned in school."

"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own

reason for existing."

"Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you

mine are still greater."

"Equations are more important to me, because politics is for the

present, but an equation is something for eternity."

"If A is a success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y

is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut."

"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not

sure about the universe."

"As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not

certain, as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality."

"Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge

is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods."

"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World

War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."

"In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must,

above all, be a sheep."

"The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there's no

risk of accident for someone who's dead."

"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."

"Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense

that goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them!"

"No, this trick won't work...How on earth are you ever going to explain

in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon

as first love?"

"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."

"Yes, we have to divide up our time like that, between our politics and

our equations. But to me our equations are far more important, for

politics are only a matter of present concern. A mathematical equation

stands forever."

"The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of

thinking...the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If

only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker."

"Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities.

The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit

to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his

intelligence."

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is

the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a

stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as

good as dead: his eyes are closed."

"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy,

education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would

indeeded be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of

punishment and hope of reward after death."

"The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more

certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie

through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but

through striving after rational knowledge."

"Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That

means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the

distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly

persistent illusion."

"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."

"One had to cram all this stuff into one's mind for the examinations,

whether one liked it or not. This coercion had such a deterring effect

on me that, after I had passed the final examination, I found the

consideration of any scientific problems distasteful to me for an entire

year."

"...one of the strongest motives that lead men to art and science is

escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless

dreariness, from the fetters of one's own ever-shifting desires. A

finely tempered nature longs to escape from the personal life into the

world of objective perception and thought."

"He who joyfully marches to music rank and file, has already earned my

contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the

spinal cord would surely suffice. This disgrace to civilization should

be done away with at once. Heroism at command, how violently I hate all

this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to

shreds than be a part of so base an action. It is my conviction that

killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder."

"A human being is a part of a whole, called by us _universe_, a part

limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and

feelings as something separated from the rest... a kind of optical

delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us,

restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few

persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this

prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living

creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

"Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can

be counted counts." (Sign hanging in Einstein's office at Princeton)

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Copyright: Kevin Harris 1995 (may be freely distributed with this

acknowledgement)

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February 25, 1999

I think it is an interesting point that pure science and pure religion have

the same common goal of finding truth. It appears that seeking truth is one

of the strongest human drives perhaps that is why so many religious leaders

as well as doctors are regarded by so many as Gods . Life would be so much

simpler if we could remember that we all have the ability to find truth for

ourselves.

Linda

Ram Chandran [chandran]

Thursday, February 25, 1999 9:48 PM

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Collected Quotes from Albert Einstein

Ram Chandran <chandran