Quotes to inspire and reflect

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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 have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.

Why is it that nobody understands me, yet everybody likes me?

My life is a simple thing that would interest no one. It is a known fact that I was born, and that is all that is necessary.

It strikes me as unfair, and even in bad taste, to select a few individuals for boundless admiration, attributing superhuman powers of mind and character to them. This has been my fate, and the contrast between the popular assessment of my powers and achievements and the reality is simply grotesque.

Thanks to my fortunate idea of introducing the relativity principle into physics, you (and others) now enormously overrate my scientific abilities, to the point where this makes me quite uncomfortable.

With fame I become more and more stupid, which of course is a very common phenomenon.

For those of us who believe in physics, the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.

Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn a living at it. One should earn one’s living by work of which one is sure one is capable. Only when we do not have to be accountable to anyone can we find joy in scientific endeavor.

Science will stagnate if it is made to serve practical goals.

The belief in an external world independent of the perceiving subject is the basis of all natural science. Since, however, sense perception only gives information of this external world or of “physical reality” indirectly, we can only grasp the latter by speculative means. It follows from this that our notions of physical reality can never be final.

The truth of a theory can never be proven, for one never knows if future experience will contradict its conclusions.

After a certain high level of technical skill is achieved, science and art tend to coalesce in esthetics, plasticity, and form. The greatest scientists are artists as well.