All Quotes

"His considered answer to what God was doing before creating the universe was "the world was made with time and not in time." Augustine's God is a being who transcends time, a being located outside time altogether and responsible for creating time as well as space and matter. ...Plato said much the same thing hundreds of years earlier. ...The history of philosophy is so rich and diverse that it would be astonishing if theories emerging from science hadn't been foreshadowed in some vague way by somebody. The significant thing about Einstein's work is that he showed in a precise, testable way, using detailed mathematical theory, how space and time are part of nature, and not merely a given arena in which the great drama of nature is acted out."

"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"

"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."

"There is no such thing as a simple material universe. The old vision which Einstein maintained until the end of his life, of an objective world of space and time and matter independent of human thought and observation, is no longer ours. Einstein hoped to find a universe possessing... "objective reality," a universe of mountaintops which he could comprehend by means of a finite set of equations. Nature, it turns out, lives not on the mountaintops but in the valleys."

"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."

"Einstein was not a mathematician, but a physicist who had mixed feelings about mathematics. ...[H]e had enormous respect for the power of mathematics to describe the workings of nature, and he had an instinct for mathematical beauty ...On the other hand, he had no interest in pure mathematics, and he had no technical skill as a mathematician. In his later years he hired younger colleagues... assistants to do mathematical calculations for him. His way of thinking was physical rather than mathematical. He was supreme among physicists as a bird who saw further than others."

"Einstein in real life was not only a great politician and a great philosopher. He was also a great observer of the human comedy, with a robust sense of humor. The third side of Einstein's personality is not emphasized by [Steven] Gimbel, but was an important cause of his immense popularity. He came as an observer to my boarding school in England in 1931, a few years before I arrived there. He was in England as the guest of Frederick Lindemann, an Oxford physicist who was also a friend and adviser to Winston Churchill. Lindemann took him to the school to meet one of the boys who was a family friend. The boy was living in Second Chamber, in an ancient building where the walls are ornamented with marble memorials to boys who occupied the rooms in past centuries. Einstein and Lindemann wandered by mistake into the adjoining First Chamber, which had been converted from a living room to a bathroom. In First Chamber, the marble memorials were preserved, but underneath them on the walls were hooks where boys had hung their smelly football clothes. Einstein surveyed the scene for a while in silence, and then said: "Now I understand: the spirits of the departed pass over into the trousers of the living.""

"The longitude race was reborn in a twentieth-century version, as optimistic inventors designed devices to synchronize timepieces all over the world. Aiming to protect the fortunes they envisaged reaping, they applied for patents in Switzerland, center of the clock-making trade. And many of their designs landed on the desk of a philosophical physicist who was originally more interested in thermodynamics than in time—Patent Officer Albert Einstein."

"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.""

"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!"

"Einstein, who thought that he had a unified theory just around the corner, but didn't know anything about nuclei and was unable of course to guess it."

"Einstein was a giant. His head was in the clouds, but his feet were on the ground. Those of us who are not so tall have to choose!"

"From 1916 Einstein and de Sitter corresponded extensively on exactly what kind of universe best fit the relativity equations. De Sitter initially developed a model of a spherical universe, in contrast to the cylindrical one Einstein had envisioned. De Sitter also tried to map out the shape of the spherical universe in absence of all matter. Einstein's reaction to de Sitter's model was strong and negative...de Sitter's sphere described a universe that changed in size instead of remaining nicely constant. ...Einstein saw matter—and its corresponding gravitational field—as what inherently created the shape of the universe. He cited what he dubbed "Mach's principle,"...the movements of any object ...were determined by all other bodies in the universe. ...how a body moves through space is tantamount to what shape space is, the concept of "shape" without matter, Einstein insisted, was meaningless."

"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."

"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?"

"I always like to remember that Einstein, in his last three decades of life, followed this dream and seemed to be completely unaware of the exciting developments that were happening in nuclear physics during this time."

"my favorite of Einstein's words on religion is "Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind." I like this because both science and religion are needed to answer life's great questions."

"In the Brownian motion paper, Einstein... calculations involved the relationship between osmotic pressure, viscosity, and the way individual particles suspended in the liquid diffuse... He realized that the kick produced by a single molecule hitting a particle as large as a pollen grain could not produce a measurable shift... But the large particle is constantly being bombarded... if you take a very small time interval, then just by chance at that instant the particle will be receiving more kicks on one side. The combined effect will shift the particle by a minute amount... Einstein discovered that it gradually moved farther from its starting point... as a random walk. He showed the distance ... depends on the square root of the time... This is called "root mean square" displacement and the equation Einstein worked out for displacement involves the temperature of the liquid, its viscosity, the radius of the particle and Avogadro's number. ...He also realized that if the predicted displacement could be measured... the same equation... could be used to give a value of Avogadro's number. ...It was extremely difficult to make the observations... but in 1908... Jean-Baptiste Perrin finally succeeded. ...Perrin's results exactly matched the predictions from Einstein's theory. ...The whole package finally established the reality of atoms and molecules, and the validity of the kinetic theory..."

"He used to say the left-hand side of his equation is beautiful and the right-hand side is ugly. Much of what he was doing in the latter part of his career was trying to move the right-hand side to the left... and understand matter as a geometrical structure. To build matter itself from geometry—that in a sense is what string theory does. ...especially in a theory like the heterotic string which is inherently a theory of gravity in which the particles of matter as well as the other forces of nature emerge in the same way that gravity emerges from geometry. Einstein would have been pleased with this, at least with the goal, if not the realization."

"Einstein was a superb epigramist, who could capture in a single sentence many deep thoughts."

"Einstein was confused, not the quantum theory."

"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence. 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 each day. Never lose a holy curiosity. ... Don't stop to marvel."

"Try to become not a man of success, but try rather to become a man of value."

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

"In matters concerning truth and justice there can be no distinction between big problems and small; for the general principles which determine the conduct of men are indivisible. Whoever is careless with truth in small matters cannot be trusted in important affairs."

"This is the reason why all attempts to obtain a deeper knowledge of the foundations of physics seem doomed to me unless the basic concepts are in accordance with general relativity from the beginning. This situation makes it difficult to use our empirical knowledge, however comprehensive, in looking for the fundamental concepts and relations of physics, and it forces us to apply free speculation to a much greater extent than is presently assumed by most physicists."

"I do not see any reason to assume that the heuristic significance of the principle of general relativity is restricted to gravitation and that the rest of physics can be dealt with separately on the basis of special relativity, with the hope that later on the whole may be fitted consistently into a general relativistic scheme. I do not think that such an attitude, although historically understandable, can be objectively justified. The comparative smallness of what we know today as gravitational effects is not a conclusive reason for ignoring the principle of general relativity in theoretical investigations of a fundamental character. In other words, I do not believe that it is justifiable to ask: What would physics look like without gravitation?"

"There exists a passion for comprehension, just as there exists a passion for music. That passion is rather common in children, but it gets lost in most people later on. Without this passion, there would be neither mathematics nor natural science. Time and again the passion for understanding has led to the illusion that man is able to comprehend the objective world rationally, by pure thought, without any empirical foundations—in short, by metaphysics. I believe that every true theorist is a kind of tamed metaphysicist, no matter how pure a "positivist" he may fancy himself. The metaphysicist believes that the logically simple is also the real. The tamed metaphysicist believes that not all that is logically simple is embodied in experienced reality, but that the totality of all sensory experience can be "comprehended" on the basis of a conceptual system built on premises of great simplicity. The skeptic will say that this is a "miracle creed." Admittedly so, but it is a miracle creed which has been borne out to an amazing extent by the development of science."

"What is significant in one's own existence one is hardly aware, and it certainly should not bother the other fellow. What does a fish know about the water in which he swims all his life?"

"I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity."

"For scientific endeavor is a natural whole the parts of which mutually support one another in a way which, to be sure, no one can anticipate."

"This freedom of communication is indispensable for the development and extension of scientific knowledge, a consideration of much practical import. In the first instance it must be guaranteed by law. But laws alone cannot secure freedom of expression; in order that every man may present his views without penalty there must be a spirit of tolerance in the entire population. Such an ideal of external liberty can never be fully attained but must be sought unremittingly if scientific thought, and philosophical and creative thinking in general, are to be advanced as far as possible."

"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?"

"We are speaking on this occasion, not as members of this or that nation, continent, or creed, but as human beings, members of the species Man, whose continued existence is in doubt. The world is full of conflicts; and, overshadowing all minor conflicts, the titanic struggle between Communism and anti-Communism...we want you, if you can, to set aside such feelings and consider yourselves only as members of a biological species which has had a remarkable history, and whose disappearance none of us can desire."

"It is feared that if many H-bombs are used there will be universal death, sudden only for a minority, but for the majority a slow torture of disease and disintegration."

"We all know, from what we experience with and within ourselves, that our conscious acts spring from our desires and our fears. Intuition tells us that that is true also of our fellows and of the higher animals. We all try to escape pain and death, while we seek what is pleasant. We are all ruled in what we do by impulses; and these impulses are so organized that our actions in general serve for our self preservation and that of the race. Hunger, love, pain, fear are some of those inner forces which rule the individual’s instinct for self preservation. At the same time, as social beings, we are moved in the relations with our fellow beings by such feelings as sympathy, pride, hate, need for power, pity, and so on. All these primary impulses, not easily described in words, are the springs of man’s actions. All such action would cease if those powerful elemental forces were to cease stirring within us. Though our conduct seems so very different from that of the higher animals, the primary instincts are much alike in them and in us. The most evident difference springs from the important part which is played in man by a relatively strong power of imagination and by the capacity to think, aided as it is by language and other symbolical devices. Thought is the organizing factor in man, intersected between the causal primary instincts and the resulting actions. In that way imagination and intelligence enter into our existence in the part of servants of the primary instincts. But their intervention makes our acts to serve ever less merely the immediate claims of our instincts."

"Intelligence makes clear to us the interrelation of means and ends. But mere thinking cannot give us a sense of the ultimate and fundamental ends. To make clear these fundamental ends and valuations, and to set them fast in the emotional life of the individual, seems to me precisely the most important function which religion has to perform in the social life of man."

"The highest principles for our aspirations and judgments are given to us in the Jewish-Christian religious tradition. It is a very high goal which, with our weak powers, we can reach only very inadequately, but which gives a sure foundation to our aspirations and valuations."

"The very fact that the totality of our sense experience is such that by means of thinking (operations with concepts, and the creation and use of definite functional relations between them, and the coordination of sense experience to these concepts) it can be put in order, this fact is one which leaves us in awe, but which we shall never understand. One may say "the eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility." . . . In speaking here concerning "comprehensibility," the expression is used in its most modest sense. It implies: the production of some sort of order among sense impressions, this order being produced by the creation of general concepts, relations between these concepts, and by relations between the concepts and sense experience, these relations being determined in any possible manner. It is in this sense that the world of our sense experience is comprehensible. The fact that it is comprehensible is a miracle."

"Ethical axioms are founded and tested not very differently from the axioms of science. Truth is what stands the test of experience."

"I advocate world government because I am convinced that there is no other possible way of eliminating the most terrible danger in which man has ever found himself. The objective of avoiding total destruction must have priority over any other objective."

"One strength of the communist system of the East is that it has some of the character of a religion and inspires the emotions of a religion. Unless the concept of peace based on law gathers behind it the force and zeal of a religion, it can hardly hope to succeed."

"And certainly we should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality. It cannot lead, it can only serve; and it is not fastidious in its choice of a leader. This characteristic is reflected in the qualities of its priests, the intellectuals. The intellect has a sharp eye for methods and tools, but is blind to ends and values. So it is no wonder that this fatal blindness is handed on from old to young and today involves a whole generation."

"Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods."

"Um ein tadelloses Mitglied einer Schafherde sein zu können, muß man vor allem ein Schaf sein."

"Hail to the man who went through life always helping others, knowing no fear, and to whom aggressiveness and resentment are alien. Such is the stuff of which the great moral leaders are made."

"The attempt to combine wisdom and power has only rarely been successful, and then only for a short while."

"Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions that differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions."

"Man usually avoids attributing cleverness to somebody else—unless it is an enemy."