Quotes from Albert Einstein

Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.

The wireless telegraph is not difficult to understand. The ordinary telegraph is like a very long cat. You pull the tail in New York, and it meows in Los Angeles. The wireless is the same, only without the cat.

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

It is a magnificent feeling to recognize the unity of complex phenomena which appear to be things quite apart from the direct visible truth.

Politics is a pendulum whose swings between anarchy and tyranny are fueled by perpetually rejuvenated illusions.

The most powerful force in the universe is compound interest

I regard class differences as contrary to justice and, in the last resort, based on force.

If my theory of relativity is proven successful, Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare that I am a citizen of the world. Should my theory prove untrue, France will say that I am a German and Germany will declare that I am a Jew.

If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.

I believe in one thing — that only a life lived for others is a life worth living.

Our world faces a crisis as yet unperceived by those possessing power to make great decisions for good or evil. The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.

Why is it nobody understands me and everybody likes me?

I don't know [what weapons will be used in the Third World War]. But I can tell you what they'll use in the Fourth — rocks!

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

Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That's relativity.

Everything should be as simple as it is, but not simpler.

How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love?

God did not create evil. Just as darkness is the absence of light, evil is the absence of God.

Student: Dr. Einstein, Aren't these the same questions as last year's [physics] final exam? Dr. Einstein: Yes; But this year the answers are different.

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

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

Men marry women with the hope they will never change. Women marry men with the hope they will change. Invariably they are both disappointed.

It would be my greatest sadness to see Zionists (Jews) do to Palestinian Arabs much of what Nazis did to Jews.

If I had an hour to solve a problem I'd spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.