“So many people today… seem to me like someone who has seen thousands of trees but has never seen a forest. A knowledge of the historic and philosophical background gives that kind of independence from prejudices of his generation…”
-Albert Einstein
“To punish me for my contempt of authority, Fate has made me an authority myself”
-Albert Einstein
By rejecting the status quo and revolutionizing physics with his rebellious notions of space and time, Einstein eventually became the scientific establishment – the authority that younger physicists rebelled against through a “quantum” leap of thought and imagination.
“Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the discernible concatenations, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion. To that extent I am, in point of fact, religious.”
Read more on On Being Religious and Grateful for the Mystery…
“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.”
Albert Einstein’s curiosity was his “religion”. He believed that the path toward God was found through a passionate and unending curiosity about the universe and our place in it. No miracle was necessary to see God, for in the very structure of the cosmos was the soul of God.
“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution.”
Seeing beyond knowledge is the realm of our imagination. Simple knowledge is but a tool for the imagination. It is, as far as we know, a uniquely human trait, without which human progress is not possible.
Read more on On the Limits of Knowledge in Imagining a New World…
“Why is it that nobody understands me, yet everybody likes me."
-Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein’s genius was as much a product of his heart and imagination as it was pure intellect.
Through his imagination he looked at the world and saw the fundemental underpinnings of space and time. And through his heart he could imagine a world of peace and dignity for every living soul.
“Use for yourself little, but give to others much”
-Albert Einstein
The brilliance of Albert Einstein was his singular, focused, insight into the universe – on the fundamental simplicity of the laws of nature.
"A human being is a part of a whole, called by us_universe_, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest… a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."
-Albert Einstein
"The world we have created is a product of our thinking; it cannot be changed without changing our thinking."
-Albert Einstein
If you don’t think that’s true, just try to change it.
“Every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based 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 and am still receiving.”
-Albert Einstein
