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Age
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People like you and I, though mortal of course like everyone else, do not grow old no matter how long we live...[We] never cease to stand like curious children before the great mystery into which we were born.
-Albert Einstein, in a letter to Otto Juliusburger
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Apathy
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The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it.
-Albert Einstein
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Appreciation
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One ought to be ashamed to make use of the wonders of science embodied in a radio set, the while appreciating them as little as a cow appreciates the botanic marvels in the plants she munches.
-Albert Einstein
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Conformity & Nonconformity
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"He who joyfully marches in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice."
-Albert Einstein
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Creativity
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"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
-Albert Einstein
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Curiosity
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The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. 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 every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.
-Albert Einstein
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"It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that modern methods of instruction have not 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 wrack 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."
-Albert Einstein
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Deception/Lying
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Whoever undertakes to set himself up as judge in the field of truth and knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the Gods.
-Albert Einstein
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Ethics
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A man's ethical behavior should be based effectively on sympathy, education, and social relationships; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.
Also in "Cosmic Religion"
-Albert Einstein, "New York Times Magazine", November 9, 1930
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Evil
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"The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it."
-Albert Einstein
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God
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My position concerning God is that of an agnostic. I am convinced that a vivid consciousness of the primary importance of moral principles for the betterment and ennoblement of life does not need the idea of a law-giver, especially a law-giver who works on the basis of reward and punishment.
-Albert Einstein, letter to M. Berkowitz, October 25, 1950
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Humanity
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Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust - we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper.
-Albert Einstein, "The Saturday Evening Post", August 26, 1929
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Ignorance & Stupidity
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"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
-Albert Einstein
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Imagination
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I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution.
-Albert Einstein, What Life Means to Einstein: An Interview by George Sylvester Viereck, "Saturday Evening Post", October 26, 1929
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Insanity
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"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
-Albert Einstein
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Learning
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Never regard study as a duty, but as the 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 work belongs.
-Albert Einstein
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Life
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How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people.
-Albert Einstein
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"Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile."
-Albert Einstein
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Mediocrity
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"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds."
-Albert Einstein
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Morals
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Force always attracts men of low morality, and I believe it to be an invariable rule that tyrants of genius are succeeded by scoundrels.
-Albert Einstein
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Mystery
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"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious."
-Albert Einstein
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Nature
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A human being is a part of the 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. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security.
-Albert Einstein
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Past, the
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The future is an unknown, but a somewhat predictable unknown. To look to the future we must first look back upon the past. That is where the seeds of the future were planted. I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.
-Albert Einstein, Interview, 1930
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Patriotism
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How I wish that somewhere there existed an island for those who are wise and of goodwill! In such a place even I would be an ardent patriot.
-Albert Einstein
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Perception
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Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a persistent one.
-Albert Einstein
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Photography
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A photograph never grows old. You and I change, people change all through the months and years, but a photograph always remains the same. How nice to look at a photograph of mother or father taken many years ago. You see them as you remember them. But as people live on, they change completely. That is why I think a photograph can be kind.
-Albert Einstein
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Problems
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"The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them."
many versions exist: "The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them."
-Albert Einstein, attributed
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Reality
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"It is my conviction that pure mathematical construction enables us to discover the concepts and the laws connecting them, which gives us the key to the understanding of nature ... In a certain sense, therefore, I hold it true that pure thought can grasp reality, as the ancients dreamed."
-Albert Einstein, 1933
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Religion
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The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish... For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are also no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything chosen about them.
-Albert Einstein, letter to Eric Gutkind, January 3, 1954
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"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."
-Albert Einstein
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To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I belong to the rank of devoutly religious men.
-Albert Einstein
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What is the meaning of human life, or of organic life altogether? To answer this question at all implies a religion. Is there any sense then, you ask, in putting it? I answer, the man who regards his own life and that of his fellow creatures as meaningless is not merely unfortunate but almost disqualified for life.
-Albert Einstein
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Science
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"When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That's relativity."
-Albert Einstein, On relativity
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The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.
-Albert Einstein, Telegram, May 24, 1946
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One needn't be a crank to miss the scientific boat. The very paragon of genius, Albert Einstein, couldn't be persuaded to give quantum physics his unreserved endorsement. Here is Einstein's most frequently paraphrased statement of dissatisfaction with the theory: Quantum mechanics is very impressive. But an inner voice tells me that it is not yet the real thing. The theory yields a lot, but it hardly brings us any closer to the secret of the Old One. In any case I am convinced that He doesn't play dice.
-Albert Einstein, Letter to Max Born, December 4, 1926
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Soul
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Since our inner experiences consist of reproductions and combinations of sensory impressions, the concept of a soul without a body seems to me to be empty and devoid of meaning.
-Albert Einstein
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Success & Failure
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"Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value."
-Albert Einstein
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Taxation
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"The hardest thing to understand in the world is the income tax."
-Albert Einstein
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Technology
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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.
-Albert Einstein
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Terrorism
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Any power must be an enemy of mankind which enslaves the individual by terror or force, whether it arises under a facets government or communist flag. All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded to the individual.
-Albert Einstein
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Thought
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"We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality."
-Albert Einstein
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Value
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"Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted."
-Albert Einstein
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War
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He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, deplorable loce-of-country stance, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.
-Albert Einstein
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Books by and about Albert Einstein
