All Quotes

"Arcem ex cloacâ facĕre."

"Aries cornibus Iasciviens."

"Atqui, ex lotio est."

"Auctoritas non veritas facit legem"

"Audaces fortuna iuvat."

"Audentes fortuna juvat."

"Audi, vide, tace, si tu vis vivere (in pace)."

"Aut inveniam viam aut faciam."

"Ave Caesar, morituri te salutant."

"Bellum se ipsum alet."

"Bene diagnoscitur, bene curatur."

"Bis dat qui cito dat."

"Brevis oratio penetrat coelos; Longa potatio evacuat scyphos."

"Canus honoretur, puer ad documenta citetur."

"Carthago delenda est."

"Cave ab homine unius libri."

"Citius venit malum quam revertitur."

"Cito maturum cito putridum."

"Cogitationes posteriores sunt saniores."

"Consilio, quod respuitur, nullum subest auxilium."

"Consuetudinis magna vis est"

"Docendo discimus."

"Duabus ancoris fultus."

"Ductus Exemplo"

"Dulce pomum quum abest custos."

"Dulcior illa sapit caro, quae magis ossibus haeret."

"Dum canem caedimus, corrosisse dicitur corrium."

"Dum lusus bonus est, ipsum dimittere fas est."

"Scientific research is based on the assumption that all events, including the actions of mankind, are determined by the laws of nature. Therefore, a research scientist will hardly be inclined to believe that events could be influenced by a prayer, that is, by a wish addressed to a supernatural Being. However, we have to admit that our actual knowledge of these laws is only an incomplete piece of work (unvollkommenes Stückwerk), so that ultimately the belief in the existence of fundamental all-embracing laws also rests on a sort of faith. All the same, this faith has been largely justified by the success of science. On the other hand, however, every one who is seriously engaged in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that the laws of nature manifest the existence of a spirit vastly superior to that of men, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble. The pursuit of science leads therefore to a religious feeling of a special kind, which differs essentially from the religiosity of more naive people."

"I was barked at by numerous dogs who are earning their food guarding ignorance and superstition for the benefit of those who profit from it. Then there are the fanatical atheists whose intolerance is of the same kind as the intolerance of the religious fanatics and comes from the same source. They are like slaves who are still feeling the weight of their chains which they have thrown off after hard struggle. They are creatures who—in their grudge against the traditional "opium for the people"—cannot bear the music of the spheres. The Wonder of nature does not become smaller because one cannot measure it by the standards of human moral and human aims."

"I have found no better expression than "religious" for confidence in the rational nature of reality as it is accessible to human reason. Wherever this feeling is absent, science degenerates into uninspired empiricism. ... I cannot accept your opinion concerning science and ethics or the determination of aims. What we call science has the sole purpose of determining what is. The determining of what ought to be is unrelated to it and cannot be accomplished methodically. Science can only arrange ethical propositions logically and furnish the means for the realization of ethical aims, but the determination of aims is beyond its scope. At least that is the way I see it."

"The idea of a personal God is quite alien to me and seems even naive. However, I am also not a "Freethinker" in the usual sense of the word because I find that this is in the main an attitude nourished exclusively by an opposition against naive superstition. My feeling is insofar religious as I am imbued with the consciousness of the insufficiency of the human mind to understand deeply the harmony of the Universe which we try to formulate as "laws of nature." It is this consciousness and humility I miss in the Free-thinker mentality."

"I want to know how God created this world. I'm not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts, the rest are details."

"It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropomorphic concept which I cannot take seriously. I feel also not able to imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere. My views are near to those of Spinoza: admiration for the beauty of and belief in the logical simplicity of the order and harmony which we can grasp humbly and only imperfectly. I believe that we have to content ourselves with our imperfect knowledge and understanding and treat values and moral obligations as a purely human problem—the most important of all human problems."

"The mere formulation of a problem is far more often essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skill. To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle requires creative imagination and makes real advances in science"

"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is."

"It is high time the ideal of success should be replaced with the ideal of service."

"In December, 1947, he made the following statement: "I came to America because of the great, great freedom which I heard existed in this country. I made a mistake in selecting America as a land of freedom, a mistake I cannot repair in the balance of my life.""

"Common sense is actually nothing more than a deposit of prejudices laid down in the mind prior to the age of eighteen."

"Compound interest is the most powerful force in the universe."

"Fairy tales and more fairy tales. [in response to a mother who wanted her son to become a scientist and asked Einstein what reading material to give him]"

"The really valuable thing is intuition."

"Two things are infinite: the universe and the human stupidity."

"Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous."

"We cannot solve the problems using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them"

"If I had only one hour to save the world, I would spend fifty-five minutes defining the problem, and only five minutes finding the solution."

"Stay away from negative people. They have a problem for every solution."

"I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots."

"Contempt prior to investigation is what enslaves a mind to Ignorance."

"Being a lover of freedom, when the revolution came in Germany, I looked to the universities to defend it, knowing that they had always boasted of their devotion to the cause of truth; but, no, the universities immediately were silenced. Then I looked to the great editors of the newspapers whose flaming editorials in days gone by had proclaimed their love of freedom; but they, like the universities, were silenced in a few short weeks. Then I looked to individual writers who, as literary guides of Germany, had written much and often concerning the place of freedom in modern life; but they, too, were mute.Only the church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in the church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration because the church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom. I am forced thus to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly."