Life is a preparation for the future; and the best preparation for the future is to live as if there were none.

In the middle of a difficulty lies opportunity.

Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters.

Never give up on what you really want to do. The person with big dreams is more powerful than one with all the facts.

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.

It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.

Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.

Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its

You’ll never find happiness if you look for it under the wrong name.

All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded the individual.

Joy in looking and comprehending is nature’s most beautiful gift.

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

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

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

Memory is deceptive because it is colored by today’s events.

We cannot despair of humanity, since we ourselves are human beings.

It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.

The environment is everything that isn’t me.

He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.

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.

The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.

Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death.

The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind.

Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.

It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.

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

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

If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.

A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy?

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

The gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.

Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.

The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.

Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.

If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.

Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal.

If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.

Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.

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.

Anyone who doesn’t take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either.

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.

We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.

Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.

It is strange to be known so universally and yet to be so lonely.

As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

Perfection of means and confusion of goals seem to characterize our age. If we desire sincerely and passionately the safety, the welfare and the free development of the talents of all men, we shall not be in want of the means to approach such a state.

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 only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.

Before God we are all equally wise – and equally foolish.

Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas. One seeks the most general ideas of operation which will bring together in simple, logical and unified form the largest possible circle of formal relationships. In this effort toward logical beauty spiritual formulas are discovered necessary for the deeper penetration into the laws of nature.

I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity.

Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love. How on earth can you explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love? Put your hand on a stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with that special girl for an hour and it seems like a minute. That’s relativity.

I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.

The hardest thing to understand in the world is the income tax.

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.

The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.

Mozart’s music is so pure and beautiful that I see it as a reflection of the inner beauty of the universe.

Knowledge of what is does not open the door directly to what should be.

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.

The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.

We still do not know one thousandth of one percent of what nature has revealed to us.

I never think of the future – it comes soon enough.

The only real valuable thing is intuition. The intellect has little to do on the road to discovery.

Intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them.

No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.

There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle.

We need never be hopeless because we can never be irreparably broken.

I want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that