Albert Einstein

To get to know a country, you must have direct contact with the earth. It's futile to gaze at the world through a car window.

I have now reached the point where I may indicate briefly what to me constitutes the essence of the crisis of our time. It concerns the relationship of the individual to society. The individual has become more conscious than ever of his dependence upon society. But he does not experience this dependence as a positive asset, as an organic tie, as a protective force, but rather as a threat to his natural rights, or even to his economic existence. Moreover, his position in society is such that the egotistical drives of his make-up are constantly being accentuated, while his social drives, which are by nature weaker, progressively deteriorate. All human beings, whatever their position in society, are suffering from this process of deterioration. Unknowingly prisoners of their own egotism, they feel insecure, lonely, and deprived of the naïve, simple, and unsophisticated enjoyment of life. Man can find meaning in life, short and perilous as it is, only through devoting himself to society.

A happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwell too much on the future.

Equations are more important to me, because politics is for the present, but an equation is something for eternity.

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.

Everyone must become their own person, however frightful that may be.

the scientist's religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is utterly insignificant reflection. This feeling is the guiding principle of his life and work, in so far as he succeeds in keeping himself from the shackles of selfish desire. It is beyond question closely akin to that which has possessed the religious geniuses of all ages.

The only real valuable thing is intuition.

Problems cannot be solved with the same mind set that created them.

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly.

How vile and despicable war seems to me! I would rather be hacked to pieces than take part in such an abominable business.

Don't do anything that goes against your conscience, even if your country says so.

Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves.

The most important decision we make is whether we believe we live in a friendly or hostile universe.

For an idea that does not first seem insane, there is no hope.