Albert Einstein is the most influential physicist of the 20th century, and just might be the most famous scientist to have ever lived. The German-born theoretical physicist is probably the world’s most recognised scientist. His formula expressing the relationship between mass and energy – E = mc2 – is well-known, if not widely understood.
Here are Einstein science quotes that have stood the test of time.
“If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?” ― Albert Einstein
“The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science.” ― Albert Einstein
“Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.” ― Albert Einstein
“Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another.” ― Albert Einstein
“It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.” ― Albert Einstein
“The human spirit must prevail over technology.” ― Albert Einstein
“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.” ― Albert Einstein
“Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.” ― Albert Einstein
“The release of atomic power has changed everything except our way of thinking … the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker. (1945)” ― Albert Einstein
“Pure mathematics is in its way the poetry of logical ideas.” ― Albert Einstein
“The formulation of the problem is often more essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skill.” ― Albert Einstein
“if the facts don’t fit the theory change the facts” ― Albert Einstein
“A scientific theory should be as simple as possible, but no simpler” ― Albert Einstein
“The purpose of mechanics is to describe how bodies change their position in space with ‘time’.” ― Albert Einstein
“The more success the quantum theory has, the sillier it looks.” ― Albert Einstein
“The creative principle [of science] resides in mathematics.” ― Albert Einstein
“The [quantum] theory reminds me a little of the system of delusions of an exceedingly intelligent paranoiac.” ― Albert Einstein
A practical profession is a salvation for a man of my type; an academic career compels a young man to scientific production and only strong characters can resist the temptation of superficial analysis.” ― Albert Einstein
“Science without epistemology is – insofar as it is thinkable at all – primitive and muddled.” ― Albert Einstein
“All of science is nothing more than the refinement of everyday thinking.” ― Albert Einstein
“In every true searcher of Nature there is a kind of religious reverence” ― Albert Einstein
“Every theory is killed sooner or later in that way. But if the theory has good in it, that good is embodied and continued in the next theory.” ― Albert Einstein
“All our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike—and yet it is the most precious thing we have.” ― Albert Einstein
“One scientific epoch ended and another began with James Clerk Maxwell.” ― Albert Einstein
“A theory is more impressive the greater the simplicity of its premises, the more different are the kinds of things it relates, and the more extended its range of applicability.” ― Albert Einstein
“If something is in me which can be called religious, then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.” ― Albert Einstein
“For a scientist, altering your doctrines when the facts change is not a sign of weakness.” ― Albert Einstein
“It is the theory which decides what can be observed” ― Albert Einstein