Observations on Life

“A happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwell too much on the future.” – In "My Future Plans," a school exam essay written September 18, 1896.  From The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, Volume 1 (1987)

“Make a lot of walks to get healthy and don’t read that much but save yourself some until you’re grown up.” – In a letter to his son Eduard, June 1918.

“When I examine myself and my methods of thought I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.” — From a conversation between Einstein and János Plesch, in János: The Story of a Doctor (1947), by János Plesch, translated by Edward FitzGerald

“I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.” — As quoted in "What Life Means to Einstein : An Interview by George Sylvester Viereck" in The Saturday Evening Post Vol. 202, 26 October 1929.

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.” – In a letter to his son Eduard, 5 February 1930.

“To punish me for my contempt of authority, Fate has made me an authority myself.” — Aphorism for a friend, September 18, 1930, as quoted in Albert Einstein: Creator and Rebel (1988) by Banesh Hoffman.

“I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.” — Comment during an interview, Belgenland (December 1930).

“It is my view that the vegetarian manner of living by its purely physical effect on the human temperament would most beneficially influence the lot of mankind.” – In a letter to Vegetarian Watch-Tower (27 December 1930)

”Falling in love is not at all the most stupid thing that people do — but gravitation cannot be held responsible for it.” — Jotted (in German) on the margins of a letter to him (1933). As quoted in Albert Einstein, The Human Side : New Glimpses From His Archives (1981)

”The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.” In “Physics and Reality" in Journal of the Franklin Institute (March 1936) as quoted in Einstein: A Biography (1954) by Antonina Vallentin.

“One may say "the eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility." In — Out of My Later Years (1956).

“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.” – In a letter to Morris Raphael Cohen, professor emeritus of philosophy at the College of the City of New York.

“Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater.” In a letter to Barbara Lee Wilson (January 7, 1943).

“For the most part we humans live with the false impression of security and a feeling of being at home in a seemingly trustworthy physical and human environment. But when the expected course of everyday life is interrupted, we are like shipwrecked people on a miserable plank in the open sea, having forgotten where they came from and not knowing whither they are drifting. But once we fully accept this, life becomes easier and there is no longer any disappointment.” – In a letter (April 26, 1945); as quoted in Albert Einstein, The Human Side: New Glimpses From His Archives (1981).

“It is a scale of proportions which makes the bad difficult and the good easy.” — On the Golden ratio, in a letter sent to Le Corbusier (1946).

“A new idea comes suddenly and in a rather intuitive way. But intuition is nothing but the outcome of earlier intellectual experience.” -– In a letter to Dr. H. L. Gordon (May 3, 1949).

“I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity.” – In Out of My Later Years (1950).

“I believe that pipe smoking contributes to a somewhat calm and objective judgment in all human affairs.” — Statement upon joining the Montreal Pipe Smokers Club (1950).

”I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.” – In a letter to Carl Seelig (March 11, 1952).

”Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.” – In Ideas and Opinions (1954).

“Common sense is nothing more than a deposit of prejudices laid down by the mind before you reach eighteen.” — As quoted in Mathematics, Queen and Servant of the Sciences (1952) by Eric Temple Bell.

“If I would be a young man again and had to decide how to make my living, I would not try to become a scientist or scholar or teacher. I would rather choose to be a plumber or a peddler in the hope to find that modest degree of independence still available under present circumstances.” – In a letter to the editor of The Reporter about the situation of scientists in America (October 13, 1954).

”The important thing is not to stop questioning; curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when contemplating the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of the mystery every day. The important thing is not to stop questioning; never lose a holy curiosity.”— Statement to William Miller, as quoted in LIFE magazine (May 2, 1955)

”Try to become not a man of success, but try rather to become a man of value.” –  As quoted by LIFE magazine (May 2, 1955)

“Never memorize what you can look up in books.” — As quoted in "Recording the Experience" (10 June 2004) at The Library of Congress.

“Even on the most solemn occasions I got away without wearing socks and hid that lack of civilisation in high boots.” — Albert Einstein in a letter to his cousin and second wife Elsa, during a visit to the University of Oxford.

“Much reading after a certain age diverts the mind from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking, just as the man who spends too much time in the theaters is apt to be content with living vicariously instead of living his own life.” – As quoted in “A Close Look at the World’s Greatest Thinker,” American Magazine, June 1930.

“Everything that the human race has done and thought is concerned with the satisfaction of deeply felt needs and the assuagement of pain. One has to keep this constantly in mind if one wishes to understand spiritual movements and their development. Feeling and longing are the motive force behind all human endeavor and human creation, in however exalted a guise the latter may present themselves to us.” — In “Religion and Science,” New York Times Magazine (November 9, 1930).

“I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves — this critical basis I call the ideal of a pigsty. The ideals that have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth. Without the sense of kinship with men of like mind, without the occupation with the objective world, the eternally unattainable in the field of art and scientific endeavors, life would have seemed empty to me. The trite objects of human efforts — possessions, outward success, luxury — have always seemed to me contemptible.” -– In The World As I See It (1949).

“My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has always contrasted oddly with my pronounced lack of need for direct contact with other human beings and human communities.” -– In The World As I See It(1949).

“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.” -– In The World As I See It (1949).

“The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained to liberation from the self.” -– In The World As I See It (1949).

“Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.” – In Out of My Later Years (1950).