Albert Einstein quotes for UPSC

Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.

I made one great mistake in my life—when I signed the letter to President Roosevelt recommending that atom bombs be made; but there was some justification—the danger that the Germans would make them.

I refuse to make money out of my science. My laurel is not for sale like so many bales of cotton.

In matters concerning truth and justice there can be no distinction between big problems and small; for the general principles which determine the conduct of men are indivisible. Whoever is careless with truth in small matters cannot be trusted in important affairs.

Try to become not a man of success, but try rather to become a man of value.

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

Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.

I have expressed an opinion on public issues whenever they appeared to me so bad and unfortunate that silence would have made me feel guilty of complicity.

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly.

Those who are led should not be driven, and they should be allowed to choose their leader.

Hail to the man who went through life always helping others, knowing no fear, and to whom aggressiveness and resentment are alien. Such is the stuff of which the great moral leaders are made.

Bureaucracy is the death of all sound work.

The state is made for man, not man for the state. And in this respect science resembles the state.

My political ideal is democracy. Everyone should be respected as an individual, but no one idolized.

In the judgment of the most competent living mathematicians, Fräulein Noether was the most significant creative mathematical genius thus far produced since the higher education of women began.

The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of every day [sic] thinking.

Perfection of means and confusion of goals seem—in my opinion—to characterize our age.

A dictatorship means muzzles all round and consequently stultification. Science can flourish only in an atmosphere of free speech.

The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.

Our entire much-praised technological progress, and civilization generally, could be compared to an axe in the hand of a pathological criminal.

I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.

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 international but its success is based on institutions, which are owned by nations. If therefore, we wish to promote culture we have to combine and to organize institutions with our own power and means.

It is easier to denature plutonium than it is to denature the evil spirit of man.

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.

Here, then, is the problem which we present to you, stark and dreadful and inescapable: Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war?

Taken on the whole, I would believe that Gandhi's views were the most enlightened of all the political men in our time. We should strive to do things in his spirit... not to use violence in fighting for our cause, but by non-participation in what we believe is evil.

Without disarmament there can be no lasting peace. On the contrary, the continuation of military armaments in their present extent will with certainty lead to new catastrophies...For the creation of this public opinion in favor of disarmament every person living shares the responsibility, through ever deed and every word.

It is quite possible to be both. I look upon myself as a man. Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.

Blind obedience to authority is the greatest enemy of truth.

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.

My political ideal is Democratic ... Force always attracts men of low morality.

The attempt to combine wisdom and power has only rarely been successful, and then only for a short while.

Generations to come, it may well be, will scarce believe that such a man as this one ever in flesh and blood walked upon this Earth.

Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.

Possessions, outward success, publicity, luxury – to me these have always been contemptible. I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for everyone, best both for the body and the mind.

Everyone sits in the prison of his own ideas; he must burst it open, and that in his youth, and so try to test his ideas on reality.