Quotes On Knowledge
Great spirits have always encountered violent resistance from mediocre minds
"It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that
the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy
curiosity of
inquiry; for this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly
in need of freedom; without this it goes to wreck and ruin
without fail. It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing
and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty."
"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It
takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite
direction."
"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
"The only real valuable thing is intuition."
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."
"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen."
"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
"The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education."
"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason
for existing."
Relativity to ...
"I want to know God's thoughts; the rest are details."
"The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax."
"I am convinced that He (God) does not play dice."
"The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility."
"Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character."
"Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind."
"Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding."
"The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible."
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not
sure about the the universe."
"Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is
shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods."
"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV
will be fought with sticks and stones."
"In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must, above all,
be a sheep."
"Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be
counted counts." (Sign hanging in Einstein's office at Princeton)
On People and Life
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."
"A person starts to live when he can live outside himself."
"I never think of the future. It comes soon enough."
"Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing."
"Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new."
"Great spirits have often encountered violent opposition from weak minds."
"Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love."
"No, this trick won't work...How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms
of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love?"
"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."
"The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of
thinking...the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind.
If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker."
"Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The
latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to
hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence."
"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source
of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can
no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes
are closed."
"Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means
nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction
between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion."
"You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail
in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And
radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them
there. The only difference is that there is no cat."
"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."
On Math and Science and Education
"Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it."
"God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates
empirically."
"The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking."
"Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal."
"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we
created them."
"Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in
school."
"Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are
still greater."
"Equations are more important to me, because politics is for the present, but an
equation is something for eternity."
"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."
"As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, as
far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality."
"Yes, we have to divide up our time like that, between our politics and our
equations. But to me our equations are far more important, for politics are only
a matter of present concern. A mathematical equation stands forever."
"...one of the strongest motives that lead men to art and science is escape from
everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness, from the fetters
of one's own ever-shifting desires. A finely tempered nature longs to escape
from the personal life into the world of objective perception and thought."
"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."
Received from the HAND! Have A Nice Day! list (majordomo@bapp.com)