Top Quotes From Albert Einstein

Background Information

One of the famous people of all time is Albert Einstein. He is a physicist and became well known because of his equation E = mc2 and his discovery of the photoelectric effect in which he won a Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921. Not only that, since Einstein was a genius, his views about everything made an impact and went beyond the realm of science. His legacy stretched beyond giving us greater understanding of humanity in general. Here are the top 10 quotes from Einstein himself.

Albert Einstein is everyone’s idea a genius. Check out inspiring quotes from the famous scientist!

  • You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.
  • Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.
  • Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.
  • Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.
  • 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.
  • Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.
  • We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
  • Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters.
  • 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.
  • I am not only a pacifist but a militant pacifist. I am willing to fight for peace. Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war.
  • The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.
  • Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.
  • The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.
  • Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.
  • Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.
  • Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.
  • Most people say that it is the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are wrong: it is character.
  • Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.
  • Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves.
  • In matters of truth and justice, there is no difference between large and small problems, for issues concerning the treatment of people are all the same.
  • Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced.
  • 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.
  • The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.
  • If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.
  • That deep emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God.
  • As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.
  • Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.
  • Most people say that it is the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are wrong: it is character.
  • The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.
  • There is no logical way to the discovery of these elemental laws. There is only the way of intuition, which is helped by a feeling for the order lying behind the appearance.
  • Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
  • It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.
  • True religion is real living; living with all one’s soul, with all one’s goodness and righteousness.
  • There comes a time when the mind takes a higher plane of knowledge but can never prove how it got there.
  • The only source of knowledge is experience.
  • A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.
  • To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science.
  • Concern for man and his fate must always form the chief interest of all technical endeavors. Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations.
  • Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.
  • Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.
  • He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.
  • Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism – how passionately I hate them!

10 Things You Didn’t Know about Albert Einstein

Einstein renounced his German citizenship

Albert Einstein didn’t like the idea of nationalism that is why at an early age of 16, he denounced his German citizenship and became state-less until he became a Swiss in 1901.

Einstein married the only female student in his class

Albert Einstein was a student in Zürich University and in his Physics class, that where he met Mileva Marić. Marić was passionate about Math and Science and wanted to be a Physicist but gave all this up when she married Einstein and became a mother of their children.

Einstein had over a thousand-paged FBI file

Albert Einstein was well known to be a pacifist and his connections with socialist organizations that is why he had an approximately 1,427-paged FBI file in 1933. He was about to be banned from entering the United States by the Alien Execution Act but was overruled by the US State Department. 

Einstein had an illegitimate child

Before Einstein and Marić were married, Marić gave birth out of wedlock to a baby girl named Lieserl while she was in Serbia. The baby was believed to die because of an ailment or was adopted. This information about Einstein’s illegitimate child was not known by the public until 1987, when his letters were made public.

Einstein used his Nobel Prize money for a divorce

Einstein offered all of his Nobel Prize money, which was a total of $32,250, to his first wife, Mileva Marić for her to agree and grant him a divorce. The amount that time was ten times more of the annual salary of an average professor.

Einstein married his cousin

After Mileva Marić granted Einstein a divorce, he married his first cousin, Elsa Einstein. Elsa was the daughter of her mother’s sister. They were married from 1919 until her death in 1936. 

Einstein was a civil rights activist 

Before Civil Rights Movement became known, Einstein was already a civil rights activist. Einstein immensely supported civil rights and free speech. There was a time that Einstein volunteered himself to be a witness in an indictment. When the court learned that Einstein will appear as a witness, the case was dismissed. 

Einstein had a son who was institutionalized 

Eduard, Einstein’s second son, had a schizophrenia and was institutionalized most of his adult life. Eduard idolized Freud and was very interested with psychoanalysis. Einstein never saw again his son when he moved to US in 1933 though they continued to send letters to each other. Eduard died in a clinic at the age of 55.

Einstein was friends with the “Father of Chemical Warfare”

Albert Einstein was recruited to Berlin thanks to one of his close friends, Fritz Haber. Haber was a German chemist and although he and Einstein were close, they had a rocky friendship when they had opposite feelings towards Germany and as well as their views about war.

Einstein had an affair with a Russian spy

Albert Einstein’s stepdaughter Margot, introduced Margarita Konenkova to her father in 1935. They became lovers and the evidence were their love letters dated between 1945 to 1946. They even had a love team dubbed as “Almar”, which was revealed by the scientist himself. Margarita Konenkova was proven to be a Russian spy but it was noted that there was no valuable information passed to her.

Conclusion

Whenever we hear the name Albert Einstein, it is synonymous to the word “genius”. His works changed the way we see the universe and also our way of living at the cosmos. Although his final words are still a mystery, many of his words lives on as famous quotes. Indeed, Einstein and his quirky nature, insights and sheer genius continues to live on in our lives.