Quotes to inspire and reflect

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.

I... a universe of atoms, an atom in the universe.

You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be. It's their mistake, not my failing.

I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.

Study hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible.

Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.

True religion is real living; living with all one's soul, with all one's goodness and righteousness.

Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn't matter. Explore the world. Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough.

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

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

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

Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.

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

You ask me if I keep a notebook to record my great ideas. I've only ever had one.

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

There could be no fairer destiny for any physical theory than that it should point the way to a more comprehensive theory in which it lives on as a limiting case.

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

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

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

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

I very rarely think in words at all. A thought comes, and I may try to express it in words afterwards.

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.

One strength of the communist system of the East is that it has some of the character of a religion and inspires the emotions of a religion.

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.

Concern for man and his fate must always form the chief interest of all technical endeavors. Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations.

The environment is everything that isn't me.

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

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

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

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.

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

If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.

We still do not know one thousandth of one percent of what nature has revealed to us.

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

In order to be an immaculate member of a flock of sheep, one must above all be a sheep oneself.

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

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.

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.

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.

Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas.

All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded the individual.

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.

Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.

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

Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts

Do not worry about your difficulties in mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater.

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

The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it