Jami Smith > Jami's Quotes

“Do you hate people?”

“I don't hate them...I just feel better when they're not around.”
― Charles Bukowski, Barfly

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”
― Albert Einstein

“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.”
― Albert Einstein

“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.”
― Albert Einstein

“Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.”
― Albert Einstein

“Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of truth.”
― Albert Einstein

“The woman who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. The woman who walks alone is likely to find herself in places no one has ever been before.”
― Albert Einstein

“You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.”
― Albert Einstein

“What a sad era when it is easier to smash an atom than a prejudice.”
― Albert Einstein

“I never made one of my discoveries through the process of rational thinking”
― Albert Einstein

“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.”
― Albert Einstein

“The only real valuable thing is intuition.”
― Albert Einstein

“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.”
― Albert Einstein

“Laws alone can not secure freedom of expression; in order that every man present his views without penalty there must be spirit of tolerance in the entire population.”
― Albert Einstein

“The word 'God' is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation, no matter how subtle, can (for me) change this.”
― Albert Einstein

“If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.”
― Albert Einstein

“The ideals which have always shone before me and filled me with joy are goodness, beauty, and truth.”
― Albert Einstein

“A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.”
― Albert Einstein

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

“The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.”
― Albert Einstein

“Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social enviroment. Most people are incapable of forming such opinions."

(Essay to Leo Baeck, 1953)”
― Albert Einstein

“No, this trick won't work... How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love? ”
― Albert Einstein

“Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another.”
― Albert Einstein

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

“It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere... Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior 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.”
― Albert Einstein

“the only escape from the miseries of life are music and cats...”
― Albert Einstein

“What really interests me is whether God had any choice in the creation of the World.”
― Albert Einstein

“Your question is the most difficult in the world. It is not a question I can answer simply with yes or no. I am not an Atheist. I do not know if I can define myself as a Pantheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. May I not reply with a parable? The human mind, no matter how highly trained, cannot grasp the universe. We are in the position of a little child, entering a huge library whose walls are covered to the ceiling with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written those books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books, a mysterious order, which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of the human mind, even the greatest and most cultured, toward God. We see a universe marvelously arranged, obeying certain laws, but we understand the laws only dimly. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that sways the constellations. I am fascinated by Spinoza's Pantheism. I admire even more his contributions to modern thought. Spinoza is the greatest of modern philosophers, because he is the first philosopher who deals with the soul and the body as one, not as two separate things.”
― Albert Einstein

“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. I am truly a 'lone traveler' 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 a sense of distance and a need for solitude… ”
― Albert Einstein, Ideas and Opinions

“One cannot alter a condition with the same mind set that created it in the first place.”
― Albert Einstein