Albert Einstein Quotes on Science (39 Quotes)


    I maintain that cosmic religiousness is the strongest and most noble driving force of scientific research.

    The process of scientific discovery is, in effect, a continual flight from wonder.

    The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. He who know it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out can.

    Why does this applied science, which saves work and makes life easier, bring us so little happiness The simple answer runs Because we have not yet learned to make sensible use of it.

    It is not the fruits of scientific research that elevate man and enrich his nature. but the urge to understand, the intellectual work, creative or receptive.


    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 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.

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

    The grand aim of all science is to cover the greatest number of empirical facts by logical deduction from the smallest number of hypotheses or axioms.

    In the temple of science are many mansions, and various indeed are they that dwell therein and the motives that have led them hither. Many take to science out of a joyful sense of superior intellectual power science is their own special sport to which they look for vivid experience and the satisfaction of ambition many others are to be found in the temple who have offered the products of their brains on this altar for purely utilitarian purposes. Were an angel of the Lord to come and drive all the people belonging to these two categories out of the temple, the assemblage would be seriously depleted, but there would still be some men, of both present and past times, left inside.

    If I had my life to live over again, I would elect to be a trader of goods rather than a student of science. I think barter is a noble thing.

    Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe a spirit vastly superior to that of man.... In this way the pursuit of science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort, which is indeed quite different from the religiosity of someone more naive.

    The finest emotion of which we are capable is the mystic emotion. Herein lies the germ of all art and all true science. Anyone to whom this feeling is alien, who is no longer capable of wonderment and lives in a state of fear is a dead man. To know that what is impenatrable for us really exists and manifests itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, whose gross forms alone are intelligible to our poor faculties - this knowledge, this feeling ... that is the core of the true religious sentiment. In this sense, and in this sense alone, I rank myself amoung profoundly religious men.

    Science is the attempt to make the chaotic diversity of our sense experience correspond to a logically uniform system of thought.

    Common sense invents and constructs no less in its own field than science does in its domain. It is, however, in the [naive] nature of common sense not to be aware of this situation.

    One of the strongest motives that lead men to art and science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness, from the fetters of one's own ever-shifting desires.

    Scientists were rated as great heretics by the church, but they were truly religious men because of their faith in the orderliness of the universe

    It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.

    One needn't be a crank to miss the scientific boat. The very paragon of genius, Albert Einstein, couldn't be persuaded to give quantum physics his unreserved endorsement. Here is Einstein's most frequently paraphrased statement of dissatisfaction with the theory Quantum mechanics is very impressive. But an inner voice tells me that it is not yet the real thing. The theory yields a lot, but it hardly brings us any closer to the secret of the Old One. In any case I am convinced that He doesn't play dice.

    One had to cram all this stuff into one's mind for the examinations, whether one liked it or not. This coercion had such a deterring effect on me that, after I had passed the final examination, I found the consideration of any scientific problems dis

    The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. The religion which based on experience, which refuses dogmatic. If there's any religion that would cope the scientific needs it will be Buddhism....

    Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it.

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

    One thing I have learned in a long life that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike - and yet it is the most precious thing we have

    Science is the century-old endeavour to bring together by means of systematic thought the perceptible phenomena of this world into as thorough-going an association as possible. To put it boldly, it is the attempt at a posterior reconstruction of exis

    All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree.


    It stands to the everlasting credit of science that by acting on the human mind it has overcome man's insecurity before himself and before nature.

    Most people say that is it is the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are wrong: it is character.

    We scientists, whose tragic destiny it has been to make the methods of annihilation ever more gruesome and more effective, must consider it our solemn and transcendent duty to do all in our power in preventing these weapons from being used for the br

    Science can only ascertain what is, but not what should be, and outside of its domain value judgments of all kinds remain necessary.

    If there is any religion that could respond to the needs of modern science, it would be Buddhism.

    Where the world ceases to be the scene of our personal hopes and wishes, where we face it as free beings admiring, asking and observing, there we enter the realm of Art and Science.

    The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the power of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms -- this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I belong to the rank of devoutly religious men.

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

    Fortunate Newton, happy childhood of science. Nature to him was an open book. He stands before us strong, certain, and alone.

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

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

    Scientific research is based on the idea that everything that takes place is determined by laws of nature, and therefore this holds for the action of people. For this reason, a research scientist will hardly be inclined to believe that events could be influenced by a prayer, i. e. by a wish addressed to a Supernatural Being.

    One reason why mathematics enjoys special esteem, above all other sciences, is that its laws are absolutely certain and indisputable, while those of other sciences are to some extent debatable and in constant danger of being overthrown by newly disco


    More Albert Einstein Quotations (Based on Topics)


    World - Man - Science - Life - Mind - God - Wisdom & Knowledge - Education - Thought & Thinking - Nature - People - Sense & Perception - Work & Career - Experience - Truth - War & Peace - Emotions - Religions & Spirituality - Success - View All Albert Einstein Quotations

    Related Authors


    Stephen Hawking - Albert Einstein - Niels Bohr - Murray Gell-Mann - James Prescott Joule - J. Robert Oppenheimer - Ilya Prigogine - Hermann von Helmholtz - Enrico Fermi - Edward Teller


Authors (by First Name)

A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - J - K - L - M
N - O - P - Q - R - S - T - U - V - W - X - Y - Z

Other Inspiring Sections