Quotes from Einstein: His Life and Universe

“To dwell on the things that depress or anger us does not help in overcoming them. One must knock them down alone.”
― Walter Isaacson, quote from Einstein: His Life and Universe

“The value of a college education is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think, he [Einstein] said.”
― Walter Isaacson, quote from Einstein: His Life and Universe

“One of the strongest motives that leads men to art and science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness. Such men make this cosmos and its construction the pivot of their emotional life, in order to find the peace and security which they cannot find in the narrow whirlpool of personal experience.”
― Walter Isaacson, quote from Einstein: His Life and Universe

“A society’s competitive advantage will come not from how well its schools teach the multiplication and periodic tables, but from how well they stimulate imagination and creativity.”
― Walter Isaacson, quote from Einstein: His Life and Universe

“How did he get his ideas? “I’m enough of an artist to draw freely on my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”
― Walter Isaacson, quote from Einstein: His Life and Universe

“I believe that love is a better teacher than a sense of duty,” he said, “at least for me.”
― Walter Isaacson, quote from Einstein: His Life and Universe

“Politics is for the present, while our equations are for eternity.”
― Walter Isaacson, quote from Einstein: His Life and Universe

“(In a letter from Einstein to Curie) Do not laugh at me for writing you without having anything sensible to say. But I am so enraged by the base manner in which the publc is presently daring to concern itself with you that I absolutely must give vent to this feeling. I am impelled to tell you how much I have come to admire your intellect, your drive, and your honesty, and that I consider myself lucky to have made your personal acquaintance in Brussels. Anyone who does not number among these reptiles is certainly happy, now as before, that we have such personages amoung us as you, and Langevin too, real peole with whom one feels privileged to be in contact. If the rabble continues to occupy itself with you, then simply dont read that hogwash, but rather leave it to the reptile for whom it has been fabricated.”
― Walter Isaacson, quote from Einstein: His Life and Universe

“I believe that the most important mission of the state is to protect the individual and to make it possible for him to develop into a creative personality,”
― Walter Isaacson, quote from Einstein: His Life and Universe

“The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science. He to whom”
― Walter Isaacson, quote from Einstein: His Life and Universe

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving. —ALBERT EINSTEIN, IN A LETTER TO HIS SON EDUARD, FEBRUARY 5, 19301”
― Walter Isaacson, quote from Einstein: His Life and Universe

“He was a loner with an intimate bond to humanity, a rebel who was suffused with reverence. And thus it was that an imaginative, impertinent patent clerk became the mind reader of the creator of the cosmos, the locksmith of the mysteries of the atom and the universe.”
― Walter Isaacson, quote from Einstein: His Life and Universe

“If we want to resist the powers that threaten to suppress intellectual and individual freedom, we must be clear what is at stake,” he said. “Without such freedom there would have been no Shakespeare, no Goethe, no Newton, no Faraday, no Pasteur, no Lister.” Freedom was a foundation for creativity.”
― Walter Isaacson, quote from Einstein: His Life and Universe

“During the crossing, Einstein explained his theory to me every day, and by the time we arrived I was fully convinced that he really understands it.”
― Walter Isaacson, quote from Einstein: His Life and Universe

“science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.”
― Walter Isaacson, quote from Einstein: His Life and Universe

“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
― Walter Isaacson, quote from Einstein: His Life and Universe

“Since the mathematicians have grabbed hold of the theory of relativity, I myself no longer understand it.”
― Walter Isaacson, quote from Einstein: His Life and Universe

“When a person can take pleasure in marching in step to a piece of music it is enough to make me despise him. He has been given his big brain only by mistake.”
― Walter Isaacson, quote from Einstein: His Life and Universe

“A new idea comes suddenly and in a rather intuitive way,” Einstein once said. “But,” he hastened to add, “intuition is nothing but the outcome of earlier intellectual experience.”
― Walter Isaacson, quote from Einstein: His Life and Universe

“One day someone called the Institute and asked to speak to a particular dean. When his secretary said that the dean wasn’t available, the caller hesitantly asked for Einstein’s home address. That was not possible to give out, he was informed. The caller’s voice then dropped to a whisper. “Please don’t tell anybody,” he said, “but I am Dr. Einstein, I’m on my way home, and I’ve forgotten where my house is.”40”
― Walter Isaacson, quote from Einstein: His Life and Universe

“A foolish faith in authority is the worst enemy of truth.”46”
― Walter Isaacson, quote from Einstein: His Life and Universe

“Falling in love is not the most stupid thing that people do,” Einstein scribbled on the letter, “but gravitation cannot be held responsible for it.”
― Walter Isaacson, quote from Einstein: His Life and Universe

“Saya yakin bahwa rasa cinta adalah guru yang lebih baik ketimbang kewajiban, paling tidak bagi saya." -Einstein-”
― Walter Isaacson, quote from Einstein: His Life and Universe

“What do you think of Adolf Hitler?” Einstein replied, “He is living on the empty stomach of Germany. As soon as economic conditions improve, he will no longer be important.”
― Walter Isaacson, quote from Einstein: His Life and Universe

“It is tasteless to prolong life artificially,” he told Dukas. “I have done my share, it is time to go. I will do it elegantly.”
― Walter Isaacson, quote from Einstein: His Life and Universe

“Subtle is the Lord, but malicious he is not.”*”
― Walter Isaacson, quote from Einstein: His Life and Universe

“Einstein was asked what the next war would look like. “I do not know how the Third World War will be fought,” he answered, “but I can tell you what they will use in the Fourth—rocks.”
― Walter Isaacson, quote from Einstein: His Life and Universe

“Any government is evil if it carries within it the tendency to deteriorate into tyranny,” he warned the Russian scientists. “The danger of such deterioration is more acute in a country in which the government has authority not only over the armed forces but also over every channel of education and information as well as over the existence of every single citizen.”27”
― Walter Isaacson, quote from Einstein: His Life and Universe

“La ventaja competitiva de una sociedad no vendrá de lo bien que se enseñe en sus escuelas la multiplicación y las tablas periódicas, sino de lo bien que se sepa estimular la imaginación y la creatividad.”
― Walter Isaacson, quote from Einstein: His Life and Universe

“«l’immaginazione è più importante della conoscenza».”
― Walter Isaacson, quote from Einstein: His Life and Universe

About the author

Popular quotes

“To my future self... Thank you... for sending the letter. I wonder if... today's present from Kakeru... reached the «Me» in the future...?" (p.215)”
― quote from Orange: The Complete Collection, Volume 1

“Sometimes it’s convenient to have a pet that no one believes in. I’d never be allowed to bring a cat to work every day, but since Crow “isn’t real,” no one’s ever reported him to the zoo management. Other times, I think it would be nice to stop hiding him from the world. Miniature griffins could be the next big trend in exotic pets.”
― Seanan McGuire, quote from Pocket Apocalypse

“Yet there was this to be said for unfavorable relationships in the wealth-distribution equation. It meant the existence of a leisure class and the development of an attractive way of life which, at its best, encouraged culture and grace. As long as the other end of the scale was not too badly off, as long as the leisure classes did not entirely forget their responsibilities while enjoying their privileges, as long as their culture took no obviously unhealthy turn, there was always the tendency in Eternity to forgive the departure from the ideal wealth-distribution pattern and to search for other, less attractive maladjustments.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Fim da Eternidade

“Like nothing else in life, sex is perfectly selfless and selfish all at once. Hot and cold, yin and yang, black and white, and all of the shades in between.”
― Renee Carlino, quote from Before We Were Strangers

“A sensible man never brags about two things. How lovable his first wife was and how good his last school was.”
― James A. Michener, quote from Sáu Người Đi Khắp Thế Gian (Quyển 1)

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.