Erlkönig: einstein-quotes.shtml

>                  Albert Einstein Quotes
>  
>  On Knowledge
>   - "Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and
>      more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage
>      -- to move in the opposite direction."
>   - "Imagination is more important than knowledge."
>   - "The only real valuable thing is intuition."
>   - "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."
>   - "Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age
>      eighteen."
>   - "The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
>   - "The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education."
>   - "The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own
>      reason for existing."
>  
>  His Understanding of the World:
>   - "I want to know God's thoughts; the rest are details."
>   - "The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax."
>   - "I am convinced that He (God) does not play dice."
>   - "The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility."
>   - "Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character."
>   - "Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind."
>   - "Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by
>      understanding."
>   - "The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is
>      comprehensible."
>   - "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and
>      I'm not sure about the the universe."
>   - "Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and
>      Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods."
>   - "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but
>      World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
>   - "In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must,
>      above all, be a sheep."
>   - "Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can
>      be counted counts." (Sign hanging in Einstein's office at Princeton)
>  
>  On People and Life:
>   - "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."
>   - "A person starts to live when he can live outside himself."
>   - "I never think of the future. It comes soon enough."
>   - "Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing."
>   - "Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new."
>   - "Great spirits have often encountered violent opposition from weak
>      minds."
>   - "Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love."
>   - "No, this trick won't work...How on earth are you ever going to
>      explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a
>      biological phenomenon as first love?"
>   - "My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable
>      superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we
>      are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind."
>   - "The release of atom power has changed everything except our way
>      of thinking...the solution to this problem lies in the heart of
>      mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker."
>   - "Great spirits have always found violent opposition from
>      mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does
>      not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly
>      and courageously uses his intelligence."
>   - "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.
>      It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom
>      this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder
>      and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed."
>   - "Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of
>      me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics,
>      know that the distinction between past, present, and future is
>      only a stubbornly persistent illusion."
>   - "You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat.
>      You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los
>      Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly
>      the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there.
>      The only difference is that there is no cat."
>   - "A human being is a part of a whole, called by us _universe_,
>      a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his
>      thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest...
>      a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion
>      is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal
>      desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us.
>      Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening
>      our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and
>      the whole of nature in its beauty."
>  
>  On Math and Science and Education:
>   - "Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's
>      living at it."
>   - "God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He
>      integrates empirically."
>   - "The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday
>      thinking."
>   - "Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological
>      criminal."
>   - "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used
>      when we created them."
>   - "Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he
>      learned in school."
>   - "Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure
>      you mine are still greater."
>   - "Equations are more important to me, because politics is for the
>      present, but an equation is something for eternity."
>   - "If A is a success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z.
>       Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut."
>   - "As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not
>      certain, as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality."
>   - "Yes, we have to divide up our time like that, between our politics
>      and our equations. But to me our equations are far more important,
>      for politics are only a matter of present concern. A mathematical
>      equation stands forever."
>   - "...one of the strongest motives that lead men to art and science
>       is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless
>      dreariness, from the fetters of one's own ever-shifting desires. A
>      finely tempered nature longs to escape from the personal life into
>      the world of objective perception and thought."
>   - "Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour.
>      Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute.
>      THAT'S relativity."
>