It takes a different kind of thinking to solve a problem than the kind of thinking which produced the problem.
Enough for me is the mystery of the eternity of life, and the inkling of the marvelous structure of reality. There is in this neither a will nor a goal, nor a must, but only sheer being.
In science, moreover, the work of the individual is so bound up with that of his scientific predecessors and contemporaries that it appears almost as an impersonal product of his generation.
Had I known that the Germans would not succeed in producing an atomic bomb, I would not have lifted a finger.
What lead me more or less directly to the special theory of relativity was the conviction that the electromotive force acting on a body in motion in a magnetic field was nothing else but an electric field.
I do not believe in race as such. Race is a fraud. All modern people are the conglomeration of so many ethnic mixtures that no pure race remains.
I am happy because I want nothing from anyone. I do not care for money. Decorations, titles or distinctions mean nothing to me. I do not crave praise. The only thing that gives me pleasure, apart from my work, my violin and my sailboat, is the appreciation of my fellow workers.
Science not only purifies the religious impulse of the dross of its anthropomorphism but also contributes to a religious spiritualization of our understanding of life.
From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: that we are here for the sake of each other.
The Universe is difficult to comprehend because it is obvious.
If you feed your mind as often as you feed your stomach, then you’ll never have to worry about feeding your stomach or a roof over your head or clothes on your back.
Incompetence is the true crisis.
I soon learned how to scent out that which was able to lead to fundamentals and to turn aside everything else, from the multitude of things that clutter up the mind and divert it from the essential.
It has often been said, and certainly not without justification, that the man of science is a poor philosopher.
On the left-hand side of the field equation we may add the fundamental tensor guv, multiplied by a universal constant, -?, at present unknown, without destroying the general covariance.
Our defense is not in our armaments, nor in science, nor in going underground. Our defense is in law and order.
Imagination is more important than knowledge. Imagination is the language of the soul. Pay attention to your imagination and you will discover all you need to be fulfilled.
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?
Do things sound better in your head before you say them, or do you even run them through there first?
The truth of a theory is in your mind, not in your eyes.