Quotes / Albert Einstein

Quotes from Einstein

If each energy quantum of the exciting light releases its energy independently from all others to the electrons, the distribution of velocities of the electrons, which means the quality of the generated cathode radiation, will be independent of the intensity of the exciting light; the number of electrons that exits the body, on the other hand, will, in otherwise equal circumstances, be proportional to the intensity of the exciting light.

— On a Heuristic Point of View about the Creation and Conversion of Light, 1905

If the motion to be discussed here can actually be observed, together with the laws it is expected to obey, then classical thermodynamics can no longer be viewed as applying to regions that can be distinguished even with a microscope, and an exact determination of actual atomic sizes becomes possible. On the other hand, if the prediction of this motion were to be proved wrong, this fact would provide a far-reaching argument against the molecular-kinetic conception of heat. [...] It is to be hoped that some enquirer may succeed shortly in solving the problem suggested here, which is so important in connection with the theory of Heat.

— On the Motion of Small Particles Suspended in a Stationary Liquid, as Required by the Molecular Kinetic Theory of Heat, 1905

So we see that we cannot attach any absolute signification to the concept of simultaneity, but that two events which, viewed from a system of coordinates, are simultaneous, can no longer be looked upon as simultaneous events when envisaged from a system which is in motion relatively to that system.

— On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies, 1905

If a body gives off the energy L in the form of radiation, its mass diminishes by L/c2. The fact that the energy withdrawn from the body becomes energy of radiation evidently makes no difference, so that we are led to the more general conclusion that the mass of a body is a measure of its energy-content; if the energy changes by L, the mass changes in the same sense by L/(9 × 10^20), the energy being measured in ergs, and the mass in grams.

— Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?, 1905

In living through this "great epoch," it is difficult to reconcile oneself to the fact that one belongs to that mad, degenerate species that boasts of its free will. How I wish that somewhere there existed an island for those who are wise and of good will! In such a place even I should be an ardent patriot!

— Letter to Paul Ehrenfest, 1914

It's convenient with that fellow Einstein, every year he retracts what he wrote the year before!

— Letter to Paul Ehrenfest, 1915

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

— Letter to Heinrich Zangger, 1917

In the temple of science are many mansions, and various indeed are they that dwell therein and the motives that have led them thither. Many take to science out of a joyful sense of superior intellectual power; science is their own special sport to which they look for vivid experience and the satisfaction of ambition; many others are to be found in the temple who have offered the products of their brains on this altar for purely utilitarian purposes.

— Birthday address for Max Planck at the Physical Society, 1918

I am neither a German citizen nor do I believe in anything that can be described as a "Jewish faith." But I am a Jew and glad to belong to the Jewish people, though I do not regard it in any way as chosen.

— Letter to Central Association of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith, 1920

The value of a college education is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think.

— to The New York Times, 1921

In so far as theories of mathematics speak about reality, they are not certain, and in so far as they are certain, they do not speak about reality.

— Geometry and Experience, 1921

''I was sitting in a chair in the patent office at Bern when all of sudden a thought occurred to me: If a person falls freely he will not feel his own weight. I was startled. This simple thought made a deep impression on me. It impelled me toward a theory of gravitation.':

— Kyoto address, 1922

If A is success in life, then A = x + y + z. Work is x, play is y and z is keeping your mouth shut.

— To Samuel J Woolf in Berlin, 1929

How can it be that mathematics, being, after all, a product of human thought which is independent of experience, is so admirably appropriate to the objects of reality? Is human reason, then, without experience, merely by taking thought, able to fathom the properties of real things?

— Sidelights on Relativity, 1922

The meaning of relativity has been widely misunderstood. Philosophers play with the word, like a child with a doll. Relativity, as I see it, merely denotes that certain physical and mechanical facts, which have been regarded as positive and permanent, are relative with regard to certain other facts in the sphere of physics and mechanics. It does not mean that everything in life is relative and that we have the right to turn the whole world mischievously topsy-turvy.

— To the Sunday Evening Post, 1929

I refuse to make money out of my science. My laurel is not for sale like so many bales of cotton.

— To the Sunday Evening Post, 1929

If I was 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. ... I cannot tell if I would have done any creative work of importance in music, but I do know that I get most joy in life out of my violin.

— To the Sunday Evening Post, 1929

In America, more than anywhere else, the individual is lost in the achievements of the many. America is beginning to be the world leader in a scientific investigation. American scholarship is both patient and inspiring. The Americans show an unselfish devotion to science, which is the very opposite of the conventional European view of your countrymen. 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. It is not true that the dollar is an American fetish. The American student is not interested in dollars, not even in success as such, but in his task, the object of the search. It is his painstaking application to the study of the infinitely little and the infinitely large which accounts for his success in astronomy.

— To the Sunday Evening Post, 1929

I am a determinist. As such, I do not believe in free will. The Jews believe in free will. They believe that man shapes his own life. I reject that doctrine philosophically. In that respect, I am not a Jew. [...] I believe with Schopenhauer: We can do what we wish, but we can only wish what we must. Practically, I am, nevertheless, compelled to act as if freedom of the will existed. If I wish to live in a civilized community, I must act as if man is a responsible being. I know that philosophically a murderer is not responsible for his crime; nevertheless, I must protect myself from unpleasant contacts. I may consider him guiltless, but I prefer not to take tea with him. [...] My own career was undoubtedly determined, not by my own will but by various factors over which I have no control—primarily those mysterious glands in which Nature prepares the very essence of life, our internal secretions.

— To the Sunday Evening Post, 1929

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.

— To American Magazine, 1930

Common to all these types is the anthropomorphic character of the idea of God. Only exceptionally gifted individuals or especially noble communities rise essentially above this level; in these there is found a third level of religious experience, even if it is seldom found in a pure form. I will call it the cosmic religious sense. This is hard to make clear to those who do not experience it, since it does not involve an anthropomorphic idea of God; the individual feels the vanity of human desires and aims, and the nobility and marvelous order which are revealed in nature and in the world of thought. He feels the individual destiny as an imprisonment and seeks to experience the totality of existence as a unity full of significance. Indications of this cosmic religious sense can be found even on earlier levels of development—for example, in the Psalms of David and in the Prophets. The cosmic element is much stronger in Buddhism, as, in particular, Schopenhauer's magnificent essays have shown us. The religious geniuses of all times have been distinguished by this cosmic religious sense, which recognizes neither dogmas nor God made in man's image. Consequently there cannot be a church whose chief doctrines are based on the cosmic religious experience. It comes about, therefore, that we find precisely among the heretics of all ages men who were inspired by this highest religious experience; often they appeared to their contemporaries as atheists, but sometimes also as saints. Viewed from this angle, men like Democritus, Francis of Assisi, and Spinoza are near to one another.

— Religion and Science, 1930

Heroism at command, this senseless violence, this accursed bombast of patriotism – how intensely I despise them! War is low and despicable, and I had rather be smitten to shreds than participate in such doings.

— What I believe, 1930

I am strongly drawn to the simple life and am often oppressed by the feeling that I am engrossing an unnecessary amount of the labour of my fellow-men. I regard class differences as contrary to justice and, in the last resort, based on force. I also consider that plain living is good for everybody, physically and mentally.

— My World View, 1931

I believe in intuition and inspiration. [...] At times I feel certain I am right while not knowing the reason. When the eclipse of 1919 confirmed my intuition, I was not in the least surprised. In fact I would have been astonished had it turned out otherwise. Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution. It is, strictly speaking, a real factor in scientific research.

— Cosmic Religion : With Other Opinions and Aphorisms, 1931

Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.

— In answer to a question asked by the editors of Youth, a journal of Young Israel of Williamsburg, NY, 1932

It can scarcely be denied that the supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience.

— Lecture at Oxford, 1933

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.

— To the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 1934

I never failed in mathematics. Before I was fifteen I had mastered differential and integral calculus.

— 1935, rebuffing a Ripley's Believe It or Not! article claiming such

Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater.

— Letter to high school student Barbara Lee Wilson, 1943

Why is it nobody understands me and everybody likes me?

— To the New York Times, 1944

It is easier to denature plutonium than it is to denature the evil spirit of man.

— Writing in New York Times Magazine, 1946

I am very smart. But not as strong-hearted as all the workers on earth for he toils endlessly and does it all to feed his family while I do it merely for solving an impossible puzzle.

— Letter to his cousin Richard, 1947

The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil. We see before us a huge community of producers the members of which are unceasingly striving to deprive each other of the fruits of their collective labor — not by force, but on the whole in faithful compliance with legally established rules.

— Why Socialism?, 1949

I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.

— Letter to Carl Seelig, 1952

A truly rational theory would allow us to deduce the elementary particles (electron, etc.) and not be forced to state them a priori.

— Letter to Michele Besso, 1952

The strange thing about growing old is that the intimate identification with the here and now is slowly lost; one feels transposed into infinity, more or less alone, no longer in hope or fear, only observing.

— Letter to Queen Mother Elisabeth of Belgium, 1953

I'm a magnet for all the crackpots in the world, but they are of interest to me, too. A favourite pastime of mine is to reconstruct their thinking processes. I feel genuinely sorry for them, that's why I try to help them.

— To Johanna Fantova, 1953

The work on satisfactory formulation of technical patents was a true blessing for me. It compelled me to be many-sided in thought, and also offered important stimulation for thought about physics. Following a practical profession is a blessing for people of my type. Because the academic career puts a young person in a sort of compulsory situation to produce scientific papers in impressive quantity, a temptation to superficiality arises that only strong characters are able to resist.

— Autobiographical Sketch, 1955

Here, then, is the problem which we present to you, stark and dreadful and inescapable: Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war?

— Russell-Einstein Manifesto, 1955

The conflict that exists today is no more than an old-style struggle for power, once again presented to mankind in semireligious trappings. The difference is that, this time, the development of atomic power has imbued the struggle with a ghostly character; for both parties know and admit that, should the quarrel deteriorate into actual war, mankind is doomed.

— Unfinished address he was writing when he was died in 1955

It appears dubious whether a field theory can account for the atomistic structure of matter and radiation as well as of quantum phenomena.

— Said in 1955, quoted in Some strangeness in the proportion: a centennial symposium to celebrate the achievements of Albert Einstein

You see, when a blind beetle crawls over the surface of a globe he doesn't notice that the track he has covered is curved. I was lucky enough to have spotted it.

— His explanation to his 9 year old son, Eduard, why he was famous

Quotes about Einstein

Bohr was inconsistent, unclear, willfully obscure and right. Einstein was consistent, clear, down-to-earth and wrong.

— John Stewart Bell, recounting the Bohr-Einstein Debates

It is almost impertinent to talk of the ascent of man in the presence of two men, Newton and Einstein, who stride like gods. Of the two, Newton is the Old Testament god; it is Einstein who is the New Testament figure. He was full of humanity, pity, a sense of enormous sympathy.

— Jacob Bronowski, The Ascent of Man

Some people have reported that Einstein was quite a good musician, but others weren't so enthusiastic. A professional violinist claimed he "fiddled like a lumberjack"; a famous pianist playing with him demanded, "For heaven's sake Albert, can't you count?"; and a music critic in Berlin, thinking Einstein was famous for his violin playing rather than physics, judged that "Einstein's playing is excellent, but he does not deserve world fame; there are many others just as good."

— Alice Calaprice & Trevor Lipscombe, Albert Einstein: A Biography

Above all, Albert Einstein was a true believer in the scientist's duty to communicate with the public...those attending (the 1939 New York World Fair) heard not much more than the words that began his speech: "If science, like art, is to perform its mission truly and fully, its achievements must enter not only superficially but with their inner meaning into the consciousness of the people." This always has been and always will be, the dream of Cosmos. When I stumbled upon Einstein's rarely quoted words of that night during some random late-night wandering on YouTube, I found the credo for 40 years of my life's work. Einstein was urging us to tear down the walls around science that have excluded and intimidated so many of us-to translate scientific insights from the technical jargon of its priesthood into the spoken language shared by us all, so that we may take these insights to heart and be changed by a personal encounter with the wonders they reveal.

— Ann Druyan, Cosmos: Possible Worlds

Dick fought back against my skepticism, arguing that Einstein had failed because he stopped thinking in concrete physical images and became a manipulator of equations. I had to admit that was true. The great discoveries of Einstein's earlier years were all based on direct physical intuition. Einstein's later unified theories failed because they were only sets of equations without physical meaning. Dick's sum-over-histories theory was in the spirit of the young Einstein, not of the old Einstein. It was solidly rooted in physical reality.

— Freeman Dyson, Disturbing the Universe

Like Hilbert, Einstein did his great work up to the age of forty without any reductionist bias. His crowning achievement, the general relativistic theory of gravitation, grew out of a deep physical understanding of natural processes. Only at the very end of his ten-year struggle to understand gravitation did he reduce the outcome of his understanding to a finite set of field equations. But like Hilbert, as he grew older he concentrated his attention more and more on the formal properties of his equations, and he lost interest in the wider universe of ideas out of which his equations arose. His last twenty years were spent in a fruitless search for a set of equations that would unify the whole of physics, without paying attention to the rapidly proliferating experimental discoveries that any unified theory would have to explain. I do not have to say more about... Einstein's lonely attempt to reduce physics to a finite set of marks on paper. His attempt failed as dismally as Hilbert's attempt to do the same thing in mathematics.

— Freeman Dyson, The Scientist as Rebel

I reflected with pleasure on my conversations with the late Hungarian theoretician Nandor Balazs, one of Einstein's last assistants. Balazs did not try to hide Einstein's foibles - including his impatience with pestering journalists and autograph-hunters, his selfish pursuit of what would now be called "his own space" - but he stressed that Einstein was a man of exceptional kindness and generosity. So was he a saint?, I asked Balazs. "No," he replied firmly. "He was better than that - he was human."

— Graham Farmelo, Bright Life Clouded by Dark Matter

We postulate: It shall be impossible, by any experiment whatsoever performed inside such a box, to detect a difference between an acceleration relative to the nebulae and gravity. That is, an accelerating box in some gravitational field is indistinguishable from a stationary box in some different gravitational field. How much like Einstein this sounds, how reminiscent of his postulate of special relativity! We know the principle of equivalence works for springs, (as we knew special relativity worked for electrodynamics), and we extend it by fiat to all experiments whatsoever. We are used to such procedures by now, but how originally brilliant it was in 1911—what a brilliant, marvelous man Einstein was!

— Richard Feynman, The Feynman Lectures

Einstein joked to his dear friend Max Born that he had a version of the Midas touch: everything he said turned to newsprint. Einstein's science made him a worldwide celebrity, a status others might have enjoyed, but which Einstein despised. He was no shrinking violet, yet he detested the shallowness and meaningless absurdity that came with his universal adoration. But he realised that it could be handy. He was given a cultural megaphone and he decided that its best use was to amplify the concerns of those whose voices were least heard. [...] Here is a man who changed the way the way we see reality, who stared down hatred and stood up for justice, yet despite all of this, the thing we immediately think of is that mane of unkempt, wild white hair. That may seem shallow of us, but I think it is a good thing. What does Einstein's hair signify? It was a political statement – he refused to conform to social standards of personal appearance. He was unapologetic in his individuality and unashamed of being different.

— Steven Gimbel, Five Reasons Why We Should Celebrate Albert Einstein

He discovered a host of other basic results in theoretical physics and it has been pointed out more than once that if somebody asked: "Who is the greatest modern physicist after Einstein?" the answer would be: Einstein again. And why? Because, although the theory of relativity in itself would have established his fame forever, had somebody else discovered relativity, his other discoveries would still make him the second greatest physicist of his time.

— Cornelius Lanczos, Albert Einstein and the Cosmic World Order

There once was a doctor with cool white hair. He was well known because he came up with some important ideas. He didn't grow the cool hair until after he was done figuring that stuff out, but by the time everyone realized how good his ideas were, he had grown the hair, so that's how everyone pictures him. He was so good at coming up with ideas that we use his name to mean "someone who's good at thinking." Two of his biggest ideas were about how space and time work. This thing you're reading right now explains those ideas using only the ten hundred words people use the most often. The doctor figured out the first idea while he was working in an office, and he figured out the second one ten years later, while he was working at a school. That second idea was a hundred years ago this year. (He also had a few other ideas that were just as important. People have spent a lot of time trying to figure out how he was so good at thinking.)

— Randall Munroe, The New Yorker, "The Space Doctor's Big Idea"

Einstein is also, and I think rightly, known as a man of very great goodwill and humanity. Indeed if I had to think of a single word for his attitude towards human problems, I would pick the Sanskrit word Ahimsa, not to hurt, harmlessness.

— Robert Oppenheimer

In the last twenty years of his life, Einstein's continued challenging of quantum theory was often dismissed as his being out of touch with modern physics. He was indeed wrong in denying the reality of the "spooky action" he discovered to lurk in quantum theory. Its existence, now called "entanglement," has been demonstrated. Nevertheless, Einstein is today recognized as the theory's most prescient critic. His constant claim that the theory's weirdness must not be brushed aside is borne out by today's proliferation of wild interpretations of quantum theory.

— Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner, Quantum Enigma: Physics Encounters Consciousness

Men like Einstein proclaim obvious truths about war but are not listened to. So long as Einstein is unintelligible, he is thought wise, but as soon as he says anything that people can understand, it is thought that his wisdom has departed from him.

— Bertrand Russell

Oh, he was a lovely man, Einstein. Oh, lovely man. He had the most perfect simplicity and perfect modesty, and all his feelings were humane.

— Bertrand Russell

I had a long conversation with Einstein a week before he died, which is something that may be of interest historically. [...] The only one I had with him took place at the end of my year at the Princeton Institute, April 1955 … It was literally a week before he died, and I was with him for over an hour and a half … I started out a bit nervous of course. I'd read that he had a hearty laugh and a simple sense of humor, so I thought I'd start out in the following way. Originally, of course, the very phrase Mach's Principle was Einstein's own phrase for that idea. And he'd used the principle as the guiding light for constructing general relativity. But he later came to feel that the principle wasn't so important, and in the autobiographical notes which he wrote for that Schilpp volume … he had said that he came to disown Mach's Principle. So knowing that, I went to see him and I said, "Professor Einstein, I've come to talk about Mach's Princip Ie and I've come to defend your former self … against your later self." And it worked: he said, "Ho, ho, ho, that is gut, Ja!" Like that, really laughed. So that put me a bit at my ease. So then I talked about my way of doing Mach's Principle and he talked about his work and his doubts about quantum theory and so on. It was a wonderful experience.

— Dennis Sciama

Napoleon, and other great men of his type, they were makers of empire. But there is an order of men that get beyond that: They are not makers of empire, but they are makers of universe. And when they have made those universes, their hands are unstained by the blood of any human being on earth. ... Ptolemy made a universe, which lasted 1400 years. Newton also made a universe, which has lasted 300 years. Einstein has made a universe, and I can't tell you how long that will last.

— George Bernard Shaw

Most scientists are happiest when they are making clear progress, solving some perhaps small but well-defined and significant problems by clever adaptations of known techniques. Most people—perhaps all—feel acutely anxious and unhappy when they are "groping in the dark" or find themselves poised uneasily upon "no firm foundation." We must admire the courage of those rare individuals who, like Einstein, systematically seek out such situations.

— Frank Wilczek & Betsy Devine, Longing for the Harmonies: Themes and Variations from Modern Physics

A clear pattern emerges... he latches on to some perceived fundamental weakness or contradiction in existing physical theory and worries over it for long periods of time—as long as it takes. He is concerned not to exploit existing ideas but to transcend them. This restless style is not necessarily a recipe for success. Einstein did not play a creative role in the development of physics after 1925... The basic difficulty was that Einstein believed he saw difficulties in the basic foundations of quantum theory and that, characteristically, he wished to overhaul the theory rather than to exploit it. While his colleagues were applying quantum theory with great success to elucidate the workings of atoms, nuclei, and bulk matter, Einstein held aloof.

— Frank Wilczek & Betsy Devine, Longing for the Harmonies: Themes and Variations from Modern Physics

Einstein's theory of relativity has advanced our ideas of the structure of the cosmos a step further. It is as if a wall which separated us from Truth has collapsed. Wider expanses and greater depths are now exposed to the searching eye of knowledge, regions of which we had not even a presentiment. It has brought us much nearer to grasping the plan that underlies all physical happening.

— Hermann Weyl

You're a very clever boy, Einstein, an extremely clever boy, but you have one great fault: you'll never let yourself be told anything.

— Heinrich Friedrich Weber

It was Einstein who had introduced almost all the revolutionary ideas underlying quantum theory, and who saw first what these ideas meant. His ultimate rejection of quantum theory was akin to Dr. Frankenstein’s shunning of the monster he had originally created for the betterment of mankind. Had Einstein not done so, in all likelihood he would be seen as the father of the modern theory.

— A. Douglas Stone, Einstein and the Quantum

In politics, it seems that Einstein was called naive for thoughts that we now understand to have been ahead of his time. Could the same have been true of his later science? For science, the question to be answered is the paradox of Einstein's failed last years. I would suggest that the resolution of the paradox is that Einstein's dissent from quantum mechanics and immersion in the search for a unified field theory were not failures but anticipations. After all, even if many string theorists would disagree with Einstein about the incompleteness of quantum mechanics, much of what goes on in string theory these days looks a lot like what Einstein was doing in his Princeton years, which was trying to find new mathematics that might extend general relativity to a unification of all the forces and particles in nature.

— Lee Smolin, The Other Einstein

The assignment we were given for this article was to describe the impact of Einstein's work on 20th-century physics. This formulation of our task is somewhat problematic given that a sizeable fraction of 20th-century physics is Einstein's work and most of the rest is more or less directly connected to it. Hence Einstein's impact definitely cannot be treated perturbatively. In fact, it would have been much easier to write about those developments of 20th-century physics that were not connected to the work of Einstein. But who would want to read or write that?

— Domenico Giulini and Norbert Straumann, Einstein's impact on the physics of the twentieth century

Einstein in fiction

Peter: You're always so concerned about your reputation. Einstein did his best stuff when he was working as a patent clerk.
Ray: You know how much a patent clerk earns!?

— Ghostbusters (1984)

When I apply my battle theory, minds are relatively blown
So take a seat Steve, oop, I see you brought your own
What's with your voice? I can't frickin' tell
You sound like WALL-E having sex with a Speak & Spell
I'll school you anywhere, MIT to Oxford
All your fans will be like, "Um, that was Hawk'ward"
I'm as dope as two rappers, you better be scared
'Cause that means Albert E equals emcee squared!

— Epic Rap Battles of History

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