All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded the individual.
I do not believe in the God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil.
God may be subtle, but he isn't plain mean.
No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right a single experiment can prove me wrong.
I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.
Politics is for the present, but an equation is for eternity.
Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.
Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions.
Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.
The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.
It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.
Time is what prevents everything from happening at once.
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.
art, experience & science
True religion is real living living with all one's soul, with all one's goodness and righteousness.
The only source of knowledge is experience.
Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism - how passionately I hate them!
It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.
The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.
Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced.
Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.
The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.
Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.
I never think of the future - it comes soon enough.
The gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.
The environment is everything that isn't me.
Perfection of means and confusion of ends seem to characterize our age.
I think and think for months and years. Ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right.
Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either.
Without deep reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people.
Joy in looking and comprehending is nature's most beautiful gift.
If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.
If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts.
Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.
Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.
Imagination is more important than knowledge.
Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.
Most of the fundamental ideas of science are essentially simple, and may, as a rule, be expressed in a language comprehensible to everyone.
It was the experience of mystery - even if mixed with fear - that engendered religion.
Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death.
You can't blame gravity for falling in love.
Confusion of goals and perfection of means seems, in my opinion, to characterize our age.
People love chopping wood. In this activity one immediately sees results.
The hardest thing to understand in the world is the income tax.
Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.
I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation and is but a reflection of human frailty.
The man of science is a poor philosopher.
You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.
Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters.
He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead his eyes are closed.
Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.
It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer.
Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it.
It gives me great pleasure indeed to see the stubbornness of an incorrigible nonconformist warmly acclaimed.
Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas.
It is strange to be known so universally and yet to be so lonely.
I am a deeply religious nonbeliever - this is a somewhat new kind of religion.
True art is characterized by an irresistible urge in the creative artist.
Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.
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.
You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.
The attempt to combine wisdom and power has only rarely been successful and then only for a short while.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
I shall never believe that God plays dice with the world.
The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there's no risk of accident for someone who's dead.
Peace cannot be kept by force it can only be achieved by understanding.
If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.
fear, being good & hope
We should take care not to make the intellect our god it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.
A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin what else does a man need to be happy?
Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.
We still do not know one thousandth of one percent of what nature has revealed to us.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
Information is not knowledge.
I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for everyone, best both for the body and the mind.
It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.
There comes a time when the mind takes a higher plane of knowledge but can never prove how it got there.
The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.
Most people say that it is the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are wrong: it is character.
Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized.
Anger dwells only in the bosom of fools.
You ask me if I keep a notebook to record my great ideas. I've only ever had one.
The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.
I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?
The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.
The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind.
The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one.
Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.
God does not play dice.
Everyone should be respected as an individual, but no one idolized.
When the solution is simple, God is answering.
Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.
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.
Intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them.
Force always attracts men of low morality.
Knowledge of what is does not open the door directly to what should be.
The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.
An empty stomach is not a good political adviser.