Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts. – Albert Einstein

Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world. – Albert Einstein

A wonder of such nature I experienced as a child of about five years, when my father showed me a compass... I can still remember that this experience made a deep and lasting impression on me. – Albert Einstein

The ordinary adult never bothers his head about the problems of space and time because his mind has been conditioned to take these things for granted since he was a child. But I developed so slowly that I began to wonder about space and time only when I was much older. Thus, I probed more deeply into the problem than an ordinary child would have. – Albert Einstein

It is a merry science. When the animal we are hunting cannot be caught, we call it X temporarily and continue to hunt until it is bagged. – Einstein’s Uncle Jakob, introducing him to the joys of algebra

At the age of twelve, I experienced a second wonder of a totally different nature: in a little book dealing with Euclidean plane geometry... I remember that an uncle told me the Pythagorean theorem before the sacred geometry booklet had come into my hands. – Albert Einstein, on his “sacred little geometry book”

Out yonder there was this huge world, which exists independently of us human beings and which stands before us like a great, eternal riddle, at least partially accessible to our inspection and thinking.– Albert Einstein, on reading Emmanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason at the age of 13

A foolish faith in authority is the greatest enemy of truth. – Albert Einstein

When you pick up a patent application, you must assume that everything the inventor says is false. – Friedrich Haller, Einstein’s supervisor at the Swiss patent office during his training

The consideration is amusing and seductive, but for all I know, God Almighty might be laughing at the whole matter and might have been leading me around by the nose. – Albert Einstein, on contemplating the staggering implications of his E = mc^2 paper

Then there occurred to me the happiest thought of my life… that the gravitational field has only a relative existence... For if one considers an observer in free fall, there exists for him during his fall no gravitational field. – Albert Einstein, on his sudden insight about the essence of the general relativity theory

Such a blind faith in authority never led to anything good in the world. – Albert Einstein, in an essay he wrote during World War I

What a pity that I have to die in this age of relativity’s development! – Hermann Minkowski, Einstein’s former math professor, on his deathbed

The theory is of incomparable beauty... For some days, I was beside myself with joyous excitement... My boldest dreams have now come true. – Albert Einstein, describing his feeling of rapture upon finally completing his equations for general relativity

Forgive me, Newton; you found the only way which, in your age, was just barely possible for a man of the highest thought and creative power. – Albert Einstein, on his relativity theory superseding Newton’s theory of gravitation

I do not carry such information in my mind since it is readily available in books. – Albert Einstein, upon being asked by an American reporter if he knew the speed of sound

Subtle is the Lord, but malicious He is not. – Albert Einstein, upon being told about a rumored experiment that supposedly disproved the theory of relativity

Nature hides her secrets because of essential loftiness, not by means of deception. – Albert Einstein, elaborating on the previous quote

They cheer me because they all understand me, and they cheer you because no one understands you. – Charlie Chaplin to Einstein when they jointly appeared at the City Lights premiere

Our ability to probe the secrets of nature is limited, and behind all discernible laws remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. I consider veneration for this force to be my true religion. – Albert Einstein

God does not play dice. – Albert Einstein, on the Uncertainty Principle in quantum mechanics

Albert, stop telling God what to do! – Niels Bohr, in response to Einstein’s assertion above

Without freedom there would have been no Shakespeare, no Goethe, no Newton, no Faraday, no Pasteur, and no Lister.– Albert Einstein

I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics. – Richard Feynman, famed Caltech physicist

The search for truth is more precious than its possession. – Albert Einstein

Brief is this existence, as a fleeting visit in a strange house. The path to be pursued is poorly lit by a flickering consciousness. – Albert Einstein

I am like an ostrich that forever buries its head in the sand so as not to face the evil quanta. – Albert Einstein

For us believing physicists, the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion. – Albert Einstein

I made one great mistake in my life—when I signed the letter to President Roosevelt recommending that atomic bombs be made. Had I known that the Germans would not succeed in developing an atomic bomb, I would have done nothing. – Albert Einstein, in his final years