Quotes — Society and the World

Albert Einstein

A man’s value to the community depends primarily on how far his feelings, thoughts, and actions are directed towards promoting the good of his fellows.

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Albert Einstein

Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.

So spoke Einstein in 1954 at the age of 75. Though he was still very busy, his work by that time had moved away from science and toward dispense that hard-earned wisdom to friends, colleagues, writers, government officials, etc.

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Albert Einstein

When one looks at humankind today, one notices with regret that quantity does not make up for quality. If quantity could only substitute for quality, we would be in better circumstances now than was Ancient Greece.

Einstein in 1937 noticed that a great explosion in population was not accompanied with a great explosion in peace and prosperity, which people universally profess to desire.

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Albert Einstein

When one looks at humankind today, one notices with regret that quantity does not make up for quality. If quantity could only substitute for quality, we would be in better circumstances now than was Ancient Greece.

Einstein in 1937 noticed that a great explosion in population was not accompanied with a great explosion in peace and prosperity, which people universally profess to desire.

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Albert Einstein

Race is a fraud. All modern people are a conglomeration of so many ethnic mixtures that no pure race remains.

This comes from a 1929 issue of the Saturday Evening Post and shows that Einstein was ahead of his own times in the ways in which he assessed the differences that caused rifts between people.

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Albert Einstein

Race is a fraud. All modern people are a conglomeration of so many ethnic mixtures that no pure race remains.

This comes from a 1929 issue of the Saturday Evening Post and shows that Einstein was ahead of his own times in the ways in which he assessed the differences that caused rifts between people.

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Albert Einstein

Sometimes one pays most for things one gets for nothing.

This comes from a 1929 interview in the Saturday Evening Post.

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Albert Einstein

Homosexuality should not be punishable except to protect children.

This was part of Einstein’s message to the World League for Sexual Reform in Berlin, 1929.

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Albert Einstein

Great men are simply men and are not to be considered from the point of view of nationality, nor should the environment in which they were brought up be taken into account.

This quote comes from the New York Times in April 1926.

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Albert Einstein

Great men are simply men and are not to be considered from the point of view of nationality, nor should the environment in which they were brought up be taken into account.

This quote comes from the New York Times in April 1926.

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Albert Einstein

Children don’t heed the life experiences of their parents, and nations ignore history. Bad lessons always have to be learned anew.

This 1923 Einstein quote sounds like a paraphrase of the famous 1905 quote from Spanish author George Santayana: “ Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

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Albert Einstein

One should keep in mind that on average the moral qualities of people do not differ much from country to country.

This 1919 quote underscores Einstein’s well-known sentiment that people all belonged to one human family. He was an advocate of world government and of people’s disassociating themselves with national identity.

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Albert Einstein

One should keep in mind that on average the moral qualities of people do not differ much from country to country.

This 1919 quote underscores Einstein’s well-known sentiment that people all belonged to one human family. He was an advocate of world government and of people’s disassociating themselves with national identity.

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Albert Einstein

I believe that all creatures who can have young ones together are very much the same.

It may not be comfortable to people who don’t like to think of humans as animals, but Einstein did think that way. For him, that viewpoint leant itself naturally to a belief in equality of all people.

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Albert Einstein

Life is a great tapestry. The individual is only an insignificant thread in an immense and miraculous pattern.

Einstein often spoke or wrote about the individual’s place in a greater societal effort, rather than individuals putting their own interests first.

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Albert Einstein

The unified field theory has been put into retirement. It is so difficult to employ mathematically that I have not been able to verify it somehow, in spite of all my efforts. This state of affairs will no doubt last many more years, mostly because physicists have little understanding of logical-philosophical arguments.

This comes from correspondence with Romanian philosopher and mathematician Maurice Solovine in 1951. Einstein was correct that the search would take many more years, as it’s still being worked on today.

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Albert Einstein

The discovery of a nuclear chain reaction need not bring about the destruction of mankind any more than the discovery of matches.

Einstein said this for the 1952 Canadian Education Week. So far, so good.

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Albert Einstein

I do not believe that civilization will be wiped out in a war fought with the atomic bomb. Perhaps two-thirds of the people on Earth would be killed, but enough men capable of thinking, and enough books, would be left to start out again, and civilization would be restored.

We can all be thankful that this rather grim assessment from Einstein has not been put to the test.

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Albert Einstein

I do not believe that civilization will be wiped out in a war fought with the atomic bomb. Perhaps two-thirds of the people on Earth would be killed, but enough men capable of thinking, and enough books, would be left to start out again, and civilization would be restored.

We can all be thankful that this rather grim assessment from Einstein has not been put to the test.

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Albert Einstein

I also believe that capitalism or, we should say, the system of free enterprise will prove unable to check unemployment, which will become increasingly chronic because of technological progress, and unable to maintain a healthy balance between production and the purchasing power of the people.

Technological progress and unemployment: two things we have in great supply today. Will Einstein be correct that the free enterprise system will not keep unemployment under control?

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Albert Einstein

I also believe that capitalism or, we should say, the system of free enterprise will prove unable to check unemployment, which will become increasingly chronic because of technological progress, and unable to maintain a healthy balance between production and the purchasing power of the people.

Technological progress and unemployment: two things we have in great supply today. Will Einstein be correct that the free enterprise system will not keep unemployment under control?

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Albert Einstein

Creation of a United States of Europe is an economic and political necessity. Whether it would contribute to the stabilization of international peace is hardly predictable. I believe yes.

Einstein scores one for his envisioning of a kind of European Union, decades before the Maastricht Treaty formed the European Union of today in 1993. Of course, to say whether or not the European Union has been good for international peace or not would be pure speculation.

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Albert Einstein

The proposed militarization of the nation not only immediately threatens us with war, it will also slowly but surely undermine the democratic spirit and the dignity of the individual in our land.

Einstein’s predictions here ring true particularly in the United States, where various laws of the past decade have all but negated the individual rights promised in the Bill of Rights.

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Albert Einstein

The proposed militarization of the nation not only immediately threatens us with war, it will also slowly but surely undermine the democratic spirit and the dignity of the individual in our land.

Einstein’s predictions here ring true particularly in the United States, where various laws of the past decade have all but negated the individual rights promised in the Bill of Rights.

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