It is a magnificent feeling to recognize the unity of complex phenomena which appear to be things quite apart from the direct visible truth.

The man who regards his own life and that of his fellow-creatures as meaningless is not merely unfortunate but almost disqualified for life.

String theory is not the only theory that can accommodate extra dimensions, but it certainly is the one that really demands and requires it.

People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.

The formulation of the problem is often more essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skill.

If I had my life to live over again, I would elect to be a trader of goods rather than a student of science. I think barter is a noble thing.

It is also a natural thing for a serious young man that he should form for himself as precise an idea as possible of the goal of his desires.

Engineering is not only study of 45 subjects but it is moral studies of intellectual life. Make things as simple as possible..but not simpler.

You are right in speaking of the moral foundations of science, but you cannot turn around and speak of the scientific foundations of morality.

Physics grapples with the largest questions the universe presents. 'Where did the totality of reality come from?' 'Did time have a beginning?'

When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That's relativity.

Our entire much-praised technological progress, and civilization generally, could be compared to an axe in the hand of a pathological criminal.

Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master. For this reason mastery demands all of a person.

During the last century, and part of the one before, it was widely held that there was an unreconcilable conflict between knowledge and belief.

Nothing happens until something moves. When something vibrates, the electrons of the entire universe resonate with it. Everything is connected.

Mere praise of peace is easy and ineffective. What is needed is acitve participation in the fight against war and everything which leads to it.

The essentials of being a person of my type lies precisely in what they think and how they think, not in what they do. Your thoughts shape you.

Intuitive powers played a central role in my scientific work, not wild speculation, yet a valued resource when no other approach was available.

What I see in Nature is a grand design that we can understand only imperfectly, one with which a responsible person must look at with humility.

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.

There's no way that scientists can ever rule out religion, or even have anything significant to say about the abstract idea of a divine creator.

I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene….No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus.

If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music.

When forced to summarize the general theory of relativity in one sentence: Time and space and gravitation have no separate existence from matter.

I do not believe in race as such. Race is a fraud. All modern people are the conglomeration of so many ethnic mixtures that no pure race remains.

A watch worn by a particle of light would not tick at all. Light realizes the dreams of Ponce de Leon and the cosmetics industry: it doesn't age.

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.

There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will.

While it is true that an inherently free and scrupulous person may be destroyed, such an individual can never be enslaved or used as a blind tool.

It would seem that men always need some idiotic fiction in the name of which they can hate one another. Once it was religion. Now it is the State.

Science should be taught not in order to support religion and not in order to destroy religion. Science should be taught simply ignoring religion.

I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it.

I have only two rules which I regard as principles of conduct. The first is: Have no rules. The second is: Be independent of the opinion of others.

Empathy is patiently and sincerely seeing the world through the other person's eyes. It is not learned in school; it is cultivated over a lifetime.

Scientists were rated as great heretics by the church, but they were truly religious men because of their faith in the orderliness of the universe.

Betterment of conditions the world over is not essentially dependent on scientific knowledge but on the fulfillment of human traditions and ideals.

I have firmly decided to bite the dust with a minimum of medical assistance when my time comes, and up to then to sin to my wicked heart's content.

A theory is something nobody believes, except the person who made it. An experiment is something everybody believes, except the person who made it.

I believe the most important mission of the state is to protect the individual and make it possible for him to develop into a creative personality.

There is something irreversible about acquiring knowledge; and the simulation of the search for it differs in a most profound way from the reality.

Our job in physics is to see things simply, to understand a great many complicated phenomena in a unified way, in terms of a few simple principles.

Symmetry principles are principles governing the laws of nature that say those laws look the same if you change your point of view in certain ways.

To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science.

Man like every other animal is by nature indolent. If nothing spurs him on, then he will hardly think, and will behave from habit like an automaton.

I agree with Schopenhauer that one of the most powerful motives that attracts people to science and art is the longing to escape from everyday life.

The development of general ability for independent thinking and judgment should always be placed foremost, not the acquisition of special knowledge.

If the bee disappeared off the face of the earth, man would only have four years left to live. This is regarded as probably NOT a quote by Einstein.

The fact that I don't have any particular need for religion doesn't mean that I have a need to cast religion aside the way some of my colleagues do.

Art is standing with one hand extended into the universe and one hand extended into the world, and letting ourselves be a conduit for passing energy.

I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious. The important thing is to not stop questioning. Curiousity has its own reason for existing.

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