Quotes to inspire and reflect

The Nuremberg Trial of the German war criminals was tacitly based on the recognition of the principle: Criminal actions cannot be excused if committed on government orders; conscience supersedes the authority of the law of the state.

America is incomparably less endangered by its own Communists than by the hysterical hunt for the few Communists that are here.

The German calamity of years ago repeats itself: people acquiesce without resistance and align themselves with the forces of evil.

If I were to be president, sometimes I would have to say to the Israeli people things they would not like to hear.

Thus I came… to a deep religiosity, which, however, found an abrupt ending at the age of 12. Through the reading of popular scientific books I soon reached the conviction that much in the stories of the Bible could not be true… Suspicion against every kind of authority grew out of this experience—an attitude which has never again left me.

I hardly ever felt as alienated from people as I do right now… The worst is that nowhere is there anything with which one can identify. Brutality and lies are everywhere.

He who is untrue to his own cause cannot command the respect of others.

There is no other salvation for civilization and even for the human race than in the creation of a world government, with the security of nations founded upon law. As long as there are sovereign states with their separate armaments and armament secrets, new world wars cannot be avoided.

Any government is in itself an evil insofar as it carries within it the tendency to deteriorate into tyranny.

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

The only justifiable purpose of political institutions is to assure the unhindered development of the individual… That is why I consider myself to be particularly fortunate to be an American.

A forced faithfulness is a bitter fruit for all concerned.

The conscientious objector is a revolutionary. In deciding to disobey the law he sacrifices his personal interests to the most important cause of working for the betterment of society.

In the case of political, and even of religious, leaders, it is often very doubtful whether they have done more good or harm.

Freedom, in any case, is only possible by constantly struggling for it. A citizenry that is politically indifferent will always end up enslaved no matter what form its constitution and legal institutions take.

Nationalism is, in my opinion, nothing more than an idealistic rationalization for militarism and aggression.

As long as I have any choice, I will stay only in a country where political liberty, toleration, and equality of all citizens before the law are the rule.

The State exists for man, not man for the State… I believe that the most important mission of the State is to protect the individual and make it possible for him to develop into a creative personality. The State should be our servant; we should not be slaves of the State. The State violates this precept when it forces us to perform military service.

To punish me for my contempt of authority, Fate has made me an authority myself.

Individual freedom provides a better basis for productive labor than any form of tyranny.

If my theory of relativity is proven successful, Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare that I am a citizen of the world. Should my theory prove untrue, France will say that I am a German and Germany will declare that I am a Jew.

Blind obedience to authority is the greatest enemy of the truth.

If one purges all subsequent additions from the original teachings of the Prophets and Christianity, especially those of the priests, one is left with a doctrine that is capable of curing all the social ills of humankind.

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.

The word “Jewish” has two meanings: It has to do with (1) nationality and descent; (2) religion. I am a Jew in the first sense but not in the second.

In every true searcher of Nature there is a kind of religious reverence, for he finds it impossible to imagine that he is the first to have thought out the exceedingly delicate threads that connect his perceptions.

Upon reading books on philosophy, I learned that I stood there like a blind man in front of a painting… the works of speculative philosophy are beyond my reach.

I see only with deep regret that God punishes so many of his children for their numerous stupidities, for which only he himself can be held responsible; in my opinion, only his nonexistence could excuse him.

Isn’t all of philosophy like writing in honey? It looks wonderful at first sight, but when you look again it is all gone. Only the smear is left.

The scientist is possessed by a sense of universal causation… His religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection… It is beyond question closely akin to that which has possessed the religious geniuses of all ages.

Try to become not a man of success, but try rather to become a man of value.

The Jew who abandons his faith (in the formal sense of the word) is in a position similar to a snail that abandons its shell. He remains a Jew.

I am absolutely convinced that no wealth in the world can help humanity forward, even in the hands of the most devoted worker in this cause. The example of great and pure characters is the only thing that can produce fine ideas and noble deeds. Money only appeals to selfishness and always tempts its owners irresistibly to abuse it.

I was originally supposed to become an engineer, but the thought of having to expend my creative energy on things that make practical everyday life even more refined, with a loathsome capital gain as the goal, was unbearable to me.

I have reached an age when, if someone tells me to wear socks, I don’t have to.

The ordinary object of human endeavor—property, outward success, luxury—have always seemed to me contemptible.

I have now been promoted to an “evil monster” in Germany, and all my money has been taken away from me. But I console myself with the thought that the latter would soon be gone, anyway.

I’m doing just fine, considering that I have triumphantly survived Nazism and two wives.

Like the man in the fairytale who turned everything he touched into gold, so with me everything is turned into newspaper clamor.

Funny people, these Germans. To them I am a stinking flower, yet they make me into a boutonniere time and time again.

She knows her way around the family of radioactive substances better than I know the way around my own family.

I’ve been so preoccupied with what would happen in the event of my death that I’m surprised to find myself still alive.

In the past it never occurred to me that every casual remark of mine would be snatched up and recorded. Otherwise I would have crept further into my shell.

I lived in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in maturity.

I have never lost an obstinate sense of detachment, of the need for solitude—a feeling which increases over the years.

You are surprised, aren’t you, at the contrast between my fame throughout the world… and the isolation and quiet in which I live here. I wished for this isolation all my life, and now I have finally achieved it here in Princeton.

My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has always contrasted oddly with my pronounced freedom from the need for direct contact with other human beings and human communities.

I hate my pictures. Look at my face. If it weren’t for this [mustache], I’d look like a woman!