What we must try to be, of course, is ourselves and wholeheartedly. We must find out what we really are and what we really want.
Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action.
Here is the simple but powerful rule… always give people more than they expect to get.
The first and most important step toward success is the feeling that we can succeed.
Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.
If I set for myself a task, be it so trifling, I shall see it through. How else shall I have confidence in myself to do important things?
Man is a goal seeking animal. His life only has meaning if he is reaching out and striving for his goals.
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.
You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.
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.
Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the Gods.
When you look at yourself from a universal standpoint, something inside always reminds or informs you that there are bigger and better things to worry about.
The key to every success is perseverance. Never giving up.
We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.
Don’t let failure or obstacles get you down. Keep your eyes, mind, and heart focused on success.
Try not to become a man of success but rather to become a man of value.
Truth is what stands the test of experience.
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.
To punish me for my contempt for authority, fate made me an authority myself.
The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.
The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them.
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.
The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one.
The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is at all comprehensible.
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.
The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious.
The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.
The important thing is not to stop questioning.
The ideals which have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth. The trite subjects of human efforts, possessions, outward success, luxury have always seemed to me contemptible.
The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.
Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.
Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.
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.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.
Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.
Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this counrty is closely related with this.
Nothing in the world makes people so afraid as the influence of independent-minded people.
Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.
No one but a theorist believes his theory; everyone puts faith in a laboratory result but the experimenter himself.
No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.
Never regard study as a duty, but as the enviable opportunity to learn to know the liberating influence of beauty in the realm of the spirit for your own personal joy and to the profit of the community to which your later work belongs.
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.
My life is a simple thing that would interest no one. It is a known fact that I was born and that is all that is necessary.
I claim credit for nothing. Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insects as well as for the stars, Human beings, vegetables or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper.
Let us not forget that knowledge and skills alone cannot lead humanity to a happy and dignified life.
Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized.
Laws alone can not secure freedom of expression; in order that every man present his views without penalty there must be spirit of tolerance in the entire population.
It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.
It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry.
It is the theory that decides what we can observe.
It is the source of all art and science.
It is the duty of every citizen according to his best capacities to give validity to his convictions in political affairs.
It is only to the individual that a soul is given.
It is mathematics that offers the exact natural sciences a certain measure of security which, without mathematics, they could not attain.
It is in fact nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curious of inquiry. It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.
Isn’t it strange that I who have written only unpopular books should be such a popular fellow?
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
The only normal people are the one's you don't know very well.
In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.
Behind every successful man there’s a lot of unsuccessful years.
With a small fraction of the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on the Iraq war, the US and Australia could ensure every starving, sunken-eyed child on the planet could be well fed, have clean water and sanitation and a local school to go to.
Imagination is more important than knowledge…
Australia must prioritize education spending. It is not a question of whether or not we have the money, it is a question of how we choose to spend it.
Renewable energy is proven technology, the price is dropping, the rest of the world is going that way, that’s where our investment should be going as well.
We must have an expansionary vision, one that captures the imagination and diversity of the whole community, one which befits a nation which has moved beyond the basics of literacy and numeracy and which wants to develop a learning culture, to affirm its democratic traditions and give expression to the diversity and vibrance of its community through its public education system. Putting optimism for everyone back into Australia’s future depends on it.
I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.
If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.
If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?
He who joyfully marches in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice.
If the facts don’t fit the theory, change the facts.
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.
Great spirits have always encountered opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly.
Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love. How on earth can you explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love? Put your hand on a stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with that special girl for an hour and it seems like a minute. That’s relativity.
If A is success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut.
God reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists.
If a cluttered desk signs a cluttered mind, Of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?
God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates empirically.
I want to know God’s thoughts; the rest are details.
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.
I want to know Gods thoughts…. all the rest are just details.
Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.
I think and think for months and years. Ninety-nine times the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right.
I never think of the future – it comes soon enough.
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.
I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler.
I feel that you are justified in looking into the future with true assurance, because you have a mode of living in which we find the joy of life and the joy of work harmoniously combined. Added to this is the spirit of ambition which pervades your very being, and seems to make the day’s work like a happy child at play.
Every kind of peaceful cooperation among men is primarily based on mutual trust and only secondarily on institutions such as courts of justice and police.
I believe that whoever tries to think things through honestly will soon recognize how unworthy and even fatal is the traditional bias against Negroes. What can the man of good will do to combat this deeply rooted prejudice? He must have the courage to set an example by words and deed, and must watch lest his children become influenced by racial bias.
Every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving.
Ethical axioms are found and tested not very differently from the axioms of science. Truth is what stands the test of experience.
Each of us visits this Earth involuntarily, and without an invitation. For me, it is enough to wonder at the secrets.
Do you remember how electrical currents and ‘unseen waves’ were laughed at? The knowledge about man is still in its infancy.
Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater.
Concern for man himself and his fate must always form the chief interest of all technical endeavor. Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations.
Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.
Before God we are all equally wise – and equally foolish.
A man´s ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.
All of us who are concerned for peace and triumph of reason and justice must be keenly aware how small an influence reason and honest good will exert upon events in the political field.
