A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.
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A perfection of means, and confusion of aims, seems to be our main problem.
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A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.
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A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy?
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A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy?
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All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree.
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All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded the individual.
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All these primary impulses, not easily described in words, are the springs of man's actions.
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An empty stomach is not a good political adviser.
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Anger dwells only in the bosom of fools.
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Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.
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Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves.
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Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.
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Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either.
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Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.
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As far as I'm concerned, I prefer silent vice to ostentatious virtue.
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As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.
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Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish.
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Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.
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Concern for man and his fate must always form the chief interest of all technical endeavors. Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations.
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Confusion of goals and perfection of means seems, in my opinion, to characterize our age.
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Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater.
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Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.
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Everyone should be respected as an individual, but no one idolized.
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Everything should be as simple as it is, but not simpler.
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Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted.
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Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.
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Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.
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Force always attracts men of low morality.
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God always takes the simplest way.
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God does not play dice.
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God may be subtle, but he isn't plain mean.
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Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.
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Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.
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He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.
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He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice.
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Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism - how passionately I hate them!
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Human beings must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.
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I am a deeply religious nonbeliever - this is a somewhat new kind of religion.
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I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination.
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I am not only a pacifist but a militant pacifist. I am willing to fight for peace. Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war.
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I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for everyone, best both for the body and the mind.
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I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation and is but a reflection of human frailty.
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I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it.
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I do not believe in the God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil.
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I do not believe that civilization will be wiped out in a war fought with the atomic bomb. Perhaps two-thirds of the people of the earth will be killed.
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I have just got a new theory of eternity.
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I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.
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I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
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I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity.
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I never think of the future - it comes soon enough.
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I shall never believe that God plays dice with the world.
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I think and think for months and years. Ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right.
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I used to go away for weeks in a state of confusion.
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I want to know all Gods thoughts; all the rest are just details.
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If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.
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If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts.
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If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?
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If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.
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If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.
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Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions.
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Imagination is more important than knowledge.
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In matters of truth and justice, there is no difference between large and small problems, for issues concerning the treatment of people are all the same.
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In order to be an immaculate member of a flock of sheep, one must above all be a sheep oneself.
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Information is not knowledge.
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Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
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Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death.
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Intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them.
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Isn't it strange that I who have written only unpopular books should be such a popular fellow?
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It gives me great pleasure indeed to see the stubbornness of an incorrigible nonconformist warmly acclaimed.
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It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.
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It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.
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It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.
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It is only to the individual that a soul is given.
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It is strange to be known so universally and yet to be so lonely.
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It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.
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It should be possible to explain the laws of physics to a barmaid.
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It stands to the everlasting credit of science that by acting on the human mind it has overcome man's insecurity before himself and before nature.
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It was the experience of mystery - even if mixed with fear - that engendered religion.
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It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer.
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Joy in looking and comprehending is nature's most beautiful gift.
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Knowledge of what is does not open the door directly to what should be.
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Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.
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Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized.
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Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.
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Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
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Love is a better teacher than duty.
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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.
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Memory is deceptive because it is colored by today's events.
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Morality is of the highest importance - but for us, not for God.
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Most of the fundamental ideas of science are essentially simple, and may, as a rule, be expressed in a language comprehensible to everyone.
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Most people say that is it is the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are wrong: it is character.
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My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.
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Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.
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Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.
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Never lose a holy curiosity.
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No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.
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No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.
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Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.
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Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced.
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Occurrences in this domain are beyond the reach of exact prediction because of the variety of factors in operation, not because of any lack of order in nature.
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Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.
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One may say the eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility.
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One strength of the communist system of the East is that it has some of the character of a religion and inspires the emotions of a religion.
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Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.
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Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master. For this reason mastery demands all of a person.
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Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
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Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.
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Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.
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People love chopping wood. In this activity one immediately sees results.
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Perfection of means and confusion of ends seem to characterize our age.
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Politics is for the present, but an equation is for eternity.
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Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas.
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Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.
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Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.
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Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it.
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Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.
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Small is the number of people who see with their eyes and think with their minds.
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Solitude is painful when one is young, but delightful when one is more mature.
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Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing.
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Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.
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Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal.
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That deep emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God.
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The attempt to combine wisdom and power has only rarely been successful and then only for a short while.
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The devil has put a penalty on all things we enjoy in life. Either we suffer in health or we suffer in soul or we get fat.
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The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.
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The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.
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The environment is everything that isn't me.
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The faster you go, the shorter you are.
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The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there's no risk of accident for someone who's dead.
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The gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.
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The grand aim of all science is to cover the greatest number of empirical facts by logical deduction from the smallest number of hypotheses or axioms.
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The hardest thing to understand in the world is the income tax.
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The high destiny of the individual is to serve rather than to rule.
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The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.
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The man of science is a poor philosopher.
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The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind.
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The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.
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The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.
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The only real valuable thing is intuition.
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The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.
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The only source of knowledge is experience.
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The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.
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The process of scientific discovery is, in effect, a continual flight from wonder.
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The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.
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The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one.
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The road to perdition has ever been accompanied by lip service to an ideal.
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The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.
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The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.
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The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.
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The value of a man should be seen in what he gives and not in what he is able to receive.
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The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.
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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.
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There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle.
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There comes a time when the mind takes a higher plane of knowledge but can never prove how it got there.
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There could be no fairer destiny for any physical theory than that it should point the way to a more comprehensive theory in which it lives on as a limiting case.
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There is no logical way to the discovery of these elemental laws. There is only the way of intuition, which is helped by a feeling for the order lying behind the appearance.
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Things should be made as simple as possible, but not any simpler.
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Time is what prevents everything from happening at once.
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To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science.
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To the Master's honor all must turn, each in its track, without a sound, forever tracing Newton's ground.
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Too many of us look upon Americans as dollar chasers. This is a cruel libel, even if it is reiterated thoughtlessly by the Americans themselves.
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True art is characterized by an irresistible urge in the creative artist.
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True religion is real living; living with all one's soul, with all one's goodness and righteousness.
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Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.
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Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.
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We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.
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We cannot despair of humanity, since we ourselves are human beings.
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We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
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We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.
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We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.
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We still do not know one thousandth of one percent of what nature has revealed to us.
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Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.
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When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than any talent for abstract, positive thinking.
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When the solution is simple, God is answering.
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When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That's relativity.
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Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters.
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Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.
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Without deep reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people.
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You ask me if I keep a notebook to record my great ideas. I've only ever had one.
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You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created.
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You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.
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You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.
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