“The search for truth is more precious than its possession.”
— Albert Einstein Primary source“Education is that which remains, if one has forgotten everything he learned in school.”
— Albert Einstein Primary source“One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike—and yet it is the most precious thing we have.”
— Albert Einstein Primary source“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
— Albert Einstein Secondary source“I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.”
— Albert Einstein Primary source“The belief in an external world independent of the perceiving subject is the basis of all natural science.”
— Albert Einstein Primary source“I believe it to be an invariable rule that tyrants of genius are succeeded by scoundrels.”
— Albert Einstein Primary source“This delicate little plant [curiosity], aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom.
— Albert Einstein Primary source“Every gift we accept is a tie. Sometimes, one pays most for the things one gets for nothing.”
— Albert Einstein Secondary source“One reason why mathematics enjoys special esteem, above all other sciences, is that its propositions are absolutely certain and indisputable, while those of all other sciences are to some extent debatable and in constant danger of being overthrown by newly discovered facts.”
— Albert Einstein Primary source“A theory is the more impressive the greater the simplicity of its premises is, the more different kinds of things it relates, and the more extended is its area of applicability.”
— Albert Einstein Primary source“He [the American] is friendly, self-confident, optimistic—and without envy.”
— Albert Einstein Primary source“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.”
— Albert Einstein Primary source“The only rational way of educating is to be an example—if one can’t help it, a warning example.”
— Albert Einstein Primary source“As long as I have any choice, I will only stay in a country where political liberty, tolerance, and equality of all citizens before the law prevail.”
— Albert Einstein Primary source“Development of Western science is based on two great achievements: the invention of the formal logical system (in Euclidean geometry) by the Greek philosophers, and the discovery of the possibility of finding out causal relationships by systematic experiment (Renaissance).”
— Albert Einstein Primary source“The American lives even more for his goals, for the future, than the European. Life for him is always becoming, never being.”
— Albert Einstein Primary source“The pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, an almost fanatical love of justice and the desire for personal independence—these are the features of the Jewish tradition which make me thank my stars that I belong to it.”
— Albert Einstein Primary source“Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn a living at it.”
— Albert Einstein Primary source“I believe in intuitions and inspirations. I sometimes feel that I am right. I do not know that I am.”
— Albert Einstein Secondary source“Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it. He who doesn’t, pays it.”
— Albert Einstein Disputed“Everything should be as simple as possible, but not simpler.”
— Albert Einstein Disputed“Intellectual individualism and scientific eras emerged simultaneously in history and have remained inseparable ever since.”
— Albert Einstein Primary sourceRichard Feynman Tony Hoare Benjamin Franklin Henry David Thoreau John F. Kennedy