Albert Einstein Quotes on Sense & Perception (15 Quotes)

Out of the multitude of our sense experiences we take, mentally and arbitrarily, certain repeatedly occurring complexes of sense impression (partly in conjunction with sense impressions which are interpreted as signs for sense experiences of others), and we attribute to them a meaning the meaning of the bodily object.

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

Considered logically this concept is not identical with the totality of sense impressions referred to but it is an arbitrary creation of the human (or animal) mind.

What is the meaning of human life, or of organic life altogether To answer this question at all implies a religion. Is there any sense then, you ask, in putting it I answer, the man who regards his own life and that of his fellow creatures as meaningless is not merely unfortunate but almost disqualified for life. The World as I See It, 1934

The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained liberation from the self.

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.

Intelligence makes clear to us the interrelationship of means and ends. But mere thinking cannot give us a sense of the ultimate and fundamental ends. To make clear these fundamental ends and valuations and to set them fast in the emotional life of the individual, seems to me precisely the most important function which religion has to form in the social life of man.

Common sense is nothing more than a deposit of prejudices laid down in the mind before you reach eighteen.

The analogy I like is this imagine being able to see the world but you are deaf, and then suddenly someone gives you the ability to hear things as well - you get an extra dimension of perception,

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.

But the creative principle resides in mathematics. In a certain sense, therefore, I hold true that pure thought can grasp reality, as the ancients dreamed.

A religious person is devout in the sense that he has no doubt about the significance of those superpersonal objects and goals which neither require nor are capable of rational foundation

Common sense is merely the deposit of prejudice laid down in the human mind before the age of 18

It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty.

On the other hand, the concept owes its meaning and its justification exclusively to the totality of the sense impressions which we associate with it.