"Bureaucracy is the death of all sound work."

"Stay away from negative people. They have a problem for every solution."

"Coincidence is God's way of staying anonymous."

"To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science."

"All of us who are concerned for peace and triumph of reason and justice must be keenly aware how small an influence reason and honest good will exert upon events in the political field."

"This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of herd life, the military system, which I abhor... This plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed. Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them!"

"We experience ourselves our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of 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."

"You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created."

"I received your letter of June 10th. I have never talked to a Jesuit priest in my life and I am astonished by the audacity to tell such lies about me. From the viewpoint of a Jesuit priest I am, of course, and have always been an atheist."

"Most of the fundamental ideas of science are essentially simple, and may, as a rule, be expressed in a language comprehensible to everyone."

"The value of a man should be seen in what he gives and not in what he is able to receive."

"To punish me for my contempt for authority, fate made me an authority myself."

"Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas."

"Common to all these types is the anthropomorphic character of their conception of God. In general, only individuals of exceptional endowments, and exceptionally high-minded communities, rise to any considerable extent above this level. But there is a third stage of religious experience which belongs to all of them, even though it is rarely found in a pure form: I shall call it cosmic religious feeling. It is very difficult to elucidate this feeling to anyone who is entirely without it, especially as there is no anthropomorphic conception of God corresponding to it."

"Look deep deep into nature and then you will understand everything better."

"I believe in intuitions and inspirations...I sometimes FEEL that I am right. I do not KNOW that I am."

"Man is here for the sake of other men - above all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness depends."

"This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future career."

"I do not believe that civilization will be wiped out in a war fought with the atomic bomb. Perhaps two-thirds of the people of the earth will be killed."

"Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking."

"Gandhi, the greatest political genius of our time, has pointed the way. He was shown of what sacrifices people are capable once they have found the right way. His work for the liberation of India is a living testimony to the fact that a will governed by firm conviction is stronger than a seemingly invincible material power."

"The only thing that you absolutely have to know, is the location of the library."

"Everyone should be respected as an individual, but no one idolized."

"Intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them."

"No one does anything right in life, until they realize that they are making a mistake."

"A man's ethical behaviour should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; 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."

"The state was made for man, not man for state."

"Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods."

"We know from daily life that we exist for other people first of all, for whose smiles and well-being our own happiness depends."

"The real purpose of socialism is precisely to overcome and advance beyond the predatory phase of human development."

"If my theory of relativity is proven successful, Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare me a citizen of the world. Should my theory prove untrue, France will say that I am a German, and Germany will declare that I am a Jew."

"When you trip over love, it is easy to get up. But when you fall in love, it is impossible to stand again."

"Politics is for the present, but an equation is for eternity."

"The state exists for man,not man for the state.The same may be said ofscience. These are old phrases,coined by people who saw in human individuality the highest human value .I would hesitate to repeat them,were it not for the ever recurring danger that they may be forgotten,especially in these days of organization and stereotypes."

"I shall never believe that God plays dice with the world."

"Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love."

"A human being is a part of the whole, called by us "Universe", a part limited in time and space."

"The best way to cheer yourself is to cheer somebody else up."

"One must divide one's time between politics and equations. But our equations are much more important to me, because politics is for the present, while our equations are for eternity."

"That which is impenetrable to us really exists. Behind the secrets of nature remains something subtle, intangible, and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion."

"The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination."

"Peace cannot be kept by force, it can only be achieved by understanding."

"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."

"Phantasie ist wichtiger als Wissen, denn Wissen ist begrenzt."

"It is the theory which decided what can be observed."

"Everything should be made as simple as possible ... but not simpler."

"A man's value to the community depends primarily on how far his feelings, thoughts, and actions are directed towards promoting the good of his fellows."

"In matters of truth and justice, there is no difference between large and small problems, for issues concerning the treatment of people are all the same."

"I gang my own gait and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties I have never lost an obstinate sense of detachment, of the need for solitude - a feeling which increases with the years."

"From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: that we are here for the sake of each other - above all for those upon whose smile and well-being our own happiness depends, and also for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy. Many times a day I realize how much my own outer and inner life is built upon the labors of my fellow men, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received."