Albert Einstein Life Quotes & Sayings

If I had it [life] to do all over again, I'd have been a plumber. — Albert Einstein

I get the most joy in life out of music. — Albert Einstein

The most precious things in life are not those you get for money. — Albert Einstein

Most people go on living their everyday life: half-frightened, half indifferent, they behold the ghostly tragic-comedy that is being performed on the international stage before the eyes and ears of the world. — Albert Einstein

Life isn't worth living, unless it is lived for someone else. — Albert Einstein

Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted. — Albert Einstein

I wish I were a poet. I've never confessed that to anyone, and I'm confessing it to you, because you've given me reason to feel that I can trust you. I've spent my life observing the universe, mostly in my mind's eye. It's been a tremendously rewarding life, a wonderful life. I've been able to explore the origins of time and space with some of the great living thinkers. But I wish I were a poet.
Albert Einstein, a hero of mine, once wrote, 'Our situation is the following. We are standing in front of a closed box which we cannot open.'
I'm sure I don't have to tell you that the vast majority of the universe is composed of dark matter. The fragile balance depends on things we'll never be able to see, hear, smell, taste, or touch. Life itself depends on them. What's real? What isn't real? Maybe those aren't the right questions to be asking. What does life depend on?
I wish I had made things for life to depend on. — Jonathan Safran Foer

I do not at all believe in human freedom in the philosophical sense... Schopenhauer's saying, 'A man can do what he wants, but not will what he wants,' has been a very real inspiration to me since my youth; it has been a continual consolation in the face of life's hardships, my own and others', and an unfailing wellspring of tolerance. This realization mercifully mitigates the easily paralyzing sense of responsibility and prevents us from taking ourselves and other people too seriously; it is conducive to a view of life which, in part, gives humour its due. — Albert Einstein

Never regard study as a duty but as an 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 works belong."

~Albert Einstein

"Einstein is referring to ones 'legacy' and its intended future recipients as being willfully purposed to benefit them on their journey through this gift of life given to us by God — R. Alan Woods

Humiliation and mental oppression by ignorant and selfish teachers wreak havoc in the youthful mind that can never be undone and often exert a baleful influence in later life. — Albert Einstein

For human community life cannot long endure on a basis of crude force, brutality, terror, and hate. — Albert Einstein

There will come a point in everyone's life , however, where only intuition can make the leap ahead, without ever knowing precisely how. One can never know why but one must accept intuition as a fact. — Albert Einstein

The only mistake in life is the lesson not learned. — Albert Einstein

Without the sense of fellowship with men of like mind ... life would have seemed to me empty. — Albert Einstein

Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving. - ALBERT EINSTEIN, IN A LETTER TO HIS SON EDUARD, FEBRUARY 5, 19301 — Walter Isaacson

There is, fortunately, a minority composed of those who recognize early in their lives that the most beautiful and satisfying experiences open to humankind are not derived from the outside, but are bound up with the development of the individual's own feeling, thinking and acting. The genuine artists, investigators and thinkers have always been persons of this kind. However inconspicuously the life of these individuals runs its course, none the less the fruits of their endeavors are the most valuable contributions which one generation can make to its successors. — Albert Einstein

I am exclusively occupied with the problem of gravitation and hope with the help of a local mathematician friend [Marcel Grossman] to overcome all the difficulties. One thing is certain, however, that never in life have I been quite so tormented. A great respect for mathematics has been instilled within me, the subtler aspects of which, in my stupidity, I regarded until now as pure luxury. — Albert Einstein

The future is of greater interest to me than the past, since that is where I intend to spend the rest of my life. — Albert Einstein

PREFACE A New Look at the Legacy of Albert Einstein Genius. Absent-minded professor. The father of relativity. The mythical figure of Albert Einstein - hair flaming in the wind, sockless, wearing an oversized sweatshirt, puffing on his pipe, oblivious to his surroundings - is etched indelibly on our minds. "A pop icon on a par with Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe, he stares enigmatically from postcards, magazine covers, T-shirts, and larger-than-life posters. A Beverly Hills agent markets his image for television commercials. He would have hated it all," writes biographer Denis Brian. Einstein is among the greatest scientists of all time, a towering figure who ranks alongside Isaac Newton for his contributions. Not surprisingly, Time magazine voted him the Person of the Century. Many historians have placed him among the hundred most influential people of the last thousand years. — Michio Kaku

Work is the only thing that gives substance to life. — Albert Einstein

[There is] a duty in refusing to cooperate in any undertaking that violates the Constitutional rights of the individual. This holds in particular for all inquisitions that are concerned with the private life and the political affiliations of the citizens. — Albert Einstein

An important advance in the life of a people is the transformation of the religion of fear into the moral religion. But one must avoid the prejudice that regards the religions of primitive peoples as pure fear religions and those of the civilized races as pure moral religions. All are mixed forms, though the moral element predominates in the higher levels of social life. Common to all these types is the anthropomorphic character of the idea of God. — Albert Einstein

Life is sacred, that is to say, it is the supreme value, to which all other values are subordinate. — Albert Einstein

The most aggravating thing about the younger generation is that I no longer belong to it. — Albert Einstein

Those instrumental goods which should serve to maintain the life and health of all human beings should be produced by the least possible labour of all. — Albert Einstein

You can move through life seeing nothing as a miracle, or seeing everything as a miracle. — Albert Einstein

The real difficulty, the difficulty which has baffled the sages of all times, is rather this: how can we make our teaching so potent in the motional life of man, that its influence should withstand the pressure of the elemental psychic forces in the individual? — Albert Einstein

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. — Albert Einstein

I am an adherent of the ideal of democracy, although I well know the weaknesses of the democratic form of government. Social equality and economic protection of the individual appeared to me always as the important communal aims of the state. Although I am a typical loner in daily life, my consciousness of belonging to the invisible community of those who strive for truth, beauty, and justice has preserved me from feeling isolated. — Albert Einstein

I am neither especially clever nor especially gifted. I am only very, very curious. — Albert Einstein

One lives one's life under constant tension, until it's time to go for good — Albert Einstein

I want to oppose the idea that the school has to teach directly that special knowledge and those accomplishments which one has to use later directly in life. The demands of life are much too manifold to let such a specialized training in school appear possible [ ... ] The development of general ability for independent thinking and judgement should always be placed foremost. — Albert Einstein

Israel is the only place on earth where Jews have the possibility to shape public life according to their own traditional ideals. — Albert Einstein

You cannot love a car the way you love a horse. The horse brings out human feelings the way machines cannot do. Things like machines may develop or neglect certain things in people ... Machines make our life impersonal and stultify certain elements in us and create an impersonal environment. — Albert Einstein

To have a better life we must keep choosing how we are living. — Albert Einstein

Man can find meaning in life, short and perilous as it is, only through devoting himself to society. — Albert Einstein

The only escape from the miseries of life are music and cats ... — Albert Einstein

A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend 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. - ALBERT EINSTEIN — Howard Schultz

How was I able to live alone before, my little everything? Without you I lack self-confidence, passion for work, and enjoyment of life
in short, without you, my life is no life.
[Written to his wife, Mileva] — Albert Einstein

If it isn't urgent, worry about it later — Albert Einstein

Our situation on this earth seems strange. Every one of us appears here involuntarily and uninvited for a short stay, without knowing the whys and the wherefore. — Albert Einstein

The ability to portray people in still life and in motion requires the highest measure of intuition and talent. — Albert Einstein

Strange is our situation here on Earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to divine a purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: that man is here for the sake of other men - above all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness depends. - ALBERT EINSTEIN — Richard Dawkins

The scientist's religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is utterly insignificant reflection. This feeling is the guiding principle of his life and work, in so far as he succeeds in keeping himself from the shackles of selfish desire. It is beyond question closely akin to that which has possessed the religious geniuses of all ages. — Albert Einstein

My internal and external life depend so much on the work of others that I must make an extreme effort to give as much as I receive. — Albert Einstein

Those whose acquaintance with scientific research is derived chiefly from its practical results easily develop a completely false notion of the mentality of the men who, surrounded by a skeptical world, have shown the way to kindred spirits scattered wide through the world and through the centuries. Only one who has devoted his life to similar ends can have a vivid realization of what has inspired these men and given them the strength to remain true to their purpose in spite of countless failures. It is cosmic religious feeling that gives a man such strength. A contemporary has said, not unjustly, that in this materialistic age of ours the serious scientific workers are the only profoundly religious people. — Albert Einstein

I believe in mystery and, frankly, I sometimes face this mystery with great fear. In other words, I think that there are many things in the universe that we cannot perceive or penetrate, and that also we experience some of the most beautiful things in life only in a very primitive form. Only in relation to these mysteries do I consider myself to be a religious man ... — Albert Einstein

In life, there are many things that may give you pleasure" - Albert Einstein — Lol

One is born into a herd of buffaloes and must be glad if one is not trampled under foot before one's time. — Albert Einstein

The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge. — Albert Einstein

Human community life cannot long endure on a basis of crude force, brutality, terror, and hate. Only understanding for our neighbors, justice in our dealings, and willingness to help our fellow men can give human society permanence and assure security for the individual. — Albert Einstein

I am a determinist. As such, I do not believe in free will. The Jews believe in free will. They believe that man shapes his own life. I reject that doctrine philosophically. In that respect I am not a Jew. — Albert Einstein

Everything that exists in your life, does so because of two things: something you did or something you didn't do. — Albert Einstein

My primary process of perceiving is muscular and visual. — Albert Einstein

Possessions, outward success, publicity, luxury - to me these have always been contemptible. I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for everyone, best for both the body and the mind. — Albert Einstein

I believe in you and me. I'm like Albert Schweitzer and Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein in that I have a respect for life
in any form. I believe in nature, in the birds, the sea, the sky, in everything I can see or that there is real evidence for. If these things are what you mean by God, then I believe in God. But I don't believe in a personal God to whom I look for comfort or for a natural on the next roll of the dice. — Frank Sinatra

Live your life ... as though everything is a miracle. — Albert Einstein

I believe that we don't need to worry about what happens after this life, as long as we do our duty here-to love and to serve. — Albert Einstein

Anyone who thinks science is trying to make human life easier or more pleasant is utterly mistaken. — Albert Einstein

To know the secrets of Life, we must first become aware of their existence. — Albert Einstein

Working with Adrien Brody was like going to Julliard, but instead of four years, I went for four weeks. He was like the Albert Einstein of professors, it was just the best experience of my life. Adrien was the most influential mentor in my acting career thus far, and even after the movie he continues to mentor me. — Sami Gayle

Human knowledge and skills alone cannot lead humanity to a happy and dignified life. — Albert Einstein

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. — Albert Einstein

As a child I received instruction both in the Bible and in the Talmud. I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene ... No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life. Jesus is too colossal for the pen of phrase-mongers, however artful. No man can dispose of Christianity with a bon mot.
(Quote taken from "What Life Means to Einstein," The Saturday Evening Post, October 26, 1929.) — Albert Einstein

I made one great mistake in my life-when I signed the letter to President Roosevelt recommending that atom bombs be made but there was some justification-the danger that the Germans would make them. — Albert Einstein

Is there not a certain satisfaction in the fact that natural limits are set to the life of the individual, so that at the conclusion it may appear as a work of art? — Albert Einstein

Life is like a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving. - ALBERT EINSTEIN — Anthony Robbins

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 (1879-1955) — Albert Einstein

Life is a great tapestry. The individual is only an insignificant thread in an immense and miraculous pattern. — Albert Einstein

The individual who has experienced solitude will not easily become a victim of mass suggestion. — Albert Einstein

The American lives even more for his goals, for the future, than the European. Life for him is always becoming, never being. — Albert Einstein

If you have never failed, you have never tried anything new. — Albert Einstein

It is not a lack of real affection that scares me away again and again from marriage. Is it a fear of the comfortable life, of nice furniture, of dishonor that I burden myself with, or even the fear of becoming a contented bourgeois. — Albert Einstein

The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind. — Albert Einstein

I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for everyone, best both for the body and the mind. — Albert Einstein

We believe that an informed citizenry will act for life and not for death. — Albert Einstein

Throughout his life, Albert Einstein would retain the intuition and the awe of a child. He never lost his sense of wonder at the magic of nature's phenomena-magnetic fields, gravity, inertia, acceleration, light beams-which grown-ups find so commonplace. He retained the ability to hold two thoughts in his mind simultaneously, to be puzzled when they conflicted, and to marvel when he could smell an underlying unity. "People like you and me never grow old," he wrote a friend later in life. "We never cease to stand like curious children before the great mystery into which we were born. — Walter Isaacson

Intelligent life on other planets? I'm not even sure there is on earth! — Albert Einstein

Not until the creation and maintenance of decent conditions of life for all people are recognized and accepted as a common obligation of all people and all countries - not until then shall we, with a certain degree of justification, be able to speak of humankind as civilized. — Albert Einstein

If the bees disappear, man would have only four years of life left. — Albert Einstein

The tragedy of life is what dies in the hearts and souls of people while they live. — Albert Einstein

One cannot help but be in awe when
[one] contemplates the mysteries of eternity,
of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. — Albert Einstein

Life is just like a game,
First you have to learn rules of the game,
And then play it better then any one else. — Albert Einstein

Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein. — H. Jackson Brown Jr.

If A is a success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut — Albert Einstein

Don't dream of being a good person, be a human being is valuable and gives value to life. — Albert Einstein

Any society which does not insist upon respect for all life must necessarily decay. — Albert Einstein

If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would have only four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man. — Albert Einstein

Whoever is devoid of the capacity of wonder, whoever remains unmoved, whoever cannot contemplate or know the deep shudder of the soul in enchantment, might just as well be dead for he has already closed his eyes upon life. — Albert Einstein

You imagine that I look back on my life's work with calm satisfaction. But from nearby it looks quite different. There is not a single concept of which I am convinced that it will stand firm, and I feel uncertain whether I am in general on the right track. — Albert Einstein

The rest of my life (as a 39 year old) I want to reflect on what life is. — Albert Einstein

The important thing is to not 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.
- "Old Man's Advice to Youth: 'Never Lose a Holy Curiosity.'" LIFE Magazine (2 May 1955) p. 64 — Albert Einstein

What is the meaning of human life, or of organic life altogether? To answer this question at all implies a religion. — Albert Einstein

I do not believe in free will. Schopenhauer's words: 'Man can do what he wants, but he cannot will what he wills,' accompany me in all situations throughout my life and reconcile me with the actions of others, even if they are rather painful to me. This awareness of the lack of free will keeps me from taking myself and my fellow men too seriously as acting and deciding individuals, and from losing my temper. — Albert Einstein

The really valuable thing in the pageant of human life seems to me not the political state, but the creative, sentient individual, the personality; it alone creates the noble and the sublime, while the herd as such remains dull in thought and dull in feeling. — Albert Einstein

Agreements about what is good or not, are usually not worth much. It is very much like art, is it not an art to lead a good life? — Albert Einstein

Hell! there ain't no rules around here! We are tryin' to accomplish somep'n! — Albert Einstein

When I was a fairly precocious young man I became thoroughly impressed with the futility of the hopes and strivings that chase most men restlessly through life. Moreover, I soon discovered the cruelty of that chase, which in those years was much more carefully covered up by hypocrisy and glittering words than is the case today. By the mere existence of his stomach everyone was condemned to participate in that chase. The stomach might well be satisfied by such participation, but not man insofar as he is a thinking and feeling being. — Albert Einstein

I do not believe that a moral philosophy can ever be founded on a scientific basis. ... The valuation of life and all its nobler expressions can only come out of the soul's yearning toward its own destiny. Every attempt to reduce ethics to scientific formulas must fail. Of that I am perfectly convinced. — Albert Einstein

I'm like Albert Schweitzer and Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein in that I have a respect for life - in any form. I believe in nature, in the birds, the sea, the sky, in everything I can see or that there is real evidence for. If these things are what you mean by God, then I believe in God. — Frank Sinatra