The gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.

Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it.

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.

We cannot despair of humanity since we ourselves are human beings.

The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears for there's no risk of accident for someone who's dead.

Peace cannot be kept by force, it can only be achieved by understanding.

It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.

I never think of the future - it comes soon enough.

Intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them.

Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.

Knowledge of what is does not open the door directly to what should be.

Solitude is painful when one is young but delightful when one is more mature.

That deep emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe forms my idea of God.

I think and think for months and years. Ninety-nine times the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right.

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.

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.

It should be possible to explain the laws of physics to a barmaid.

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.

Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.

True art is characterized by an irresistible urge in the creative artist.

Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either.

The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.

The hardest thing to understand in the world is the income tax.

You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.

We should take care not to make the intellect our god, it has of course powerful muscles but no personality.

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

The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything, save our modes of thinking, and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.

There could be no fairer destiny for any physical theory than that it should point the way to a more comprehensive theory in which it lives on as a limiting case.

Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized.

Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced.

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.

We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.

Science without religion is lame religion without science is blind.

I shall never believe that God plays dice with the world.

The environment is everything that isn't me.

The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one.

I used to go away for weeks in a state of confusion.

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.

It stands to the everlasting credit of science that by acting on the human mind it has overcome man's insecurity before himself and before nature.

To the Master's honor all must turn each in its track without a sound forever tracing Newton's ground.

Human beings must have action, and they will make it if they cannot find it.

The road to perdition has ever been accompanied by lip service to an ideal.

Strive not to be a success but rather to be of value.

Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.

Confusion of goals and perfection of means seems in my opinion to characterize our age.

Anger dwells only in the bosom of fools.

Time is what prevents everything from happening at once.

It is only to the individual that a soul is given.

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

Politics is for the present but an equation is for eternity.

All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded the individual.

Most of the fundamental ideas of science are essentially simple and may as a rule be expressed in a language comprehensible to everyone.

A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy?

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 pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.

It gives me great pleasure indeed to see the stubbornness of an incorrigible nonconformist warmly acclaimed.

I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.

The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.

Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.

All these primary impulses not easily described in words are the springs of man's actions.

I have just got a new theory of eternity.

You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created.

Morality is of the highest importance - but for us not for God.

The faster you go the shorter you are.

One may say the eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility.

Pure mathematics is in its way the poetry of logical ideas.

The man of science is a poor philosopher.

As far as I'm concerned I prefer silent vice to ostentatious virtue.

The grand aim of all science is to cover the greatest number of empirical facts by logical deduction from the smallest number of hypotheses or axioms.

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.

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.

Small is the number of people who see with their eyes and think with their minds.

People love chopping wood. In this activity one immediately sees results.

A perfection of means and confusion of aims seems to be our main problem.

The process of scientific discovery is in effect a continual flight from wonder.

God may be subtle, but he isn't plain mean.

God always takes the simplest way.

I do not believe that civilization will be wiped out in a war fought with the atomic bomb. Perhaps two-thirds of the people of the earth will be killed.

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.

Occurrences in this domain are beyond the reach of exact prediction because of the variety of factors in operation, not because of any lack of order in nature.

Information is not knowledge.

Not everything that can be counted counts and not everything that counts can be counted.

I do not believe in the God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil.

God does not play dice.

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.

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.

I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation and is but a reflection of human frailty.

No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right, a single experiment can prove me wrong.