It’s the birthday of theoretical physicist, humanist, and philosopher Albert Einstein (1879 – 1955.)
Einstein was born to Jewish parents in Ulm, Germany, in 1879. Encouraged by his uncle, Einstein started studying mathematics at school. He was an average student and his teachers predicted that he would never amount to much in life. He did not succeed in his first attempt at the entrance exam to a technical college at age 16.
Einstein barely made it through college and could not get a job in several science fields. He eventually joined the Swiss Patents Office in Bern as an examiner of patent applications and wrote scientific papers during his time off.
In 1905, at age 26, Einstein published four papers on the Special Theory of Relativity. These papers broke new ground in physics and included the legendary relation between mass and energy: E = mc-squared. In 1916, he published his work on the General Theory of Relativity. However, it was his work on the photoelectric effect that won Einstein the Nobel Prize in 1921.
Einstein immigrated to America in 1933 when Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933 and pursued an academic career at Princeton University. He died in 1955.
Einstein is best known for revolutionizing twentieth-century physics with his theories of relativity and contributions to photoelectric effect and the unification of the laws of physics. He was also a passionate humanist and advocated peace, political freedom, and social justice.
For more on Albert Einstein, I recommend Walter Isaacson’s excellent biography or DK Publishing’s biography. Also worth reading are Einstein’s “The World As I See It,” and his “Cosmic Religion and Other Opinions” with Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw.
Albert Einstein said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” This quote initiated my interest in inspirational quotes. My collection now includes 120,000 quotes.
Inspirational Quotations by Albert Einstein
Many of the things you can count, don’t count. Many of the things you can’t count, really count.
* Albert Einstein
Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with the important matters.
* Albert Einstein
If men as individuals surrender to the call of their elementary instincts, avoiding pain and seeking satisfaction only for their own selves, the result for them all taken together must be a state of insecurity, of fear, and of promiscuous misery.
* Albert Einstein
There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is.
* Albert Einstein
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.
* Albert Einstein
It can scarcely be denied that the supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience.
* Albert Einstein
One should guard against preaching to young people success in the customary form as the main aim in life. The most important motive for work in school and in life is pleasure in work, pleasure in its result, and the knowledge of the value of the result to the community.
* Albert Einstein
A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.
* Albert Einstein
Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people.
* Albert Einstein
Intellectuals solve problems; geniuses prevent them.
* Albert Einstein
The value of a man resides in what he gives and not in what he is capable of receiving.
* Albert Einstein
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.
* Albert Einstein
The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.
* Albert Einstein
The most important human endeavor is the striving for morality in our actions. Our inner balance and even our very existence depend on it. Only morality in our actions can give beauty and dignity to life.
* Albert Einstein
We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.
* Albert Einstein
*Keyword(s): Inspiration, Quotations
