“Books are for people who wish they were somewhere else.”
“Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.”
from poem Go to the Limits of Your Longing.
Appears in movie Jojo Rabbit.
Variant: Let everything happen to you
Beauty and terror
Just keep going
No feeling is final
“It is far harder to kill a phantom than a reality.”
Variant: It is far harder to kill a phantom than a reality
Source: The Death of the Moth and Other Essays
“It's not an old movie if you haven't seen it.”
On TCM with Robert Osborne
Private Screenings interview (2005)
“Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another.”
“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.”
Letter to his son Eduard (5 February 1930), as quoted in Walter Isaacson, Einstein: His Life and Universe (2007), p. 367
1930s
As quoted in Journal of France and Germany (1942–1944) by Gilbert Fowler White, in excerpt published in Living with Nature's Extremes: The Life of Gilbert Fowler White (2006) by Robert E. Hinshaw, p. 62. From the context http://books.google.com/books?id=_2qfZRp9SeEC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA62#v=onepage&q&f=false it seems that White did not specify whether he had heard Einstein himself say this or whether he was repeating a quote that had been passed along by someone else, so without a primary source the validity of this quote should be considered questionable.
Some have argued that elsewhere Einstein defined a "miracle" as a type of event he did not believe was possible—Einstein on Religion by Max Jammer (1999) quotes on p. 89 from a 1931 conversation Einstein had with David Reichinstein, where Reichinstein brought up philosopher Arthur Liebert's argument that the indeterminism of quantum mechanics might allow for the possibility of miracles, and Einstein replied that Liebert's argument dealt "with a domain in which lawful rationality [determinism] does not exist. A 'miracle,' however, is an exception from lawfulness; hence, there where lawfulness does not exist, also its exception, i.e., a miracle, cannot exist." ("Dort, wo eine Gesetzmässigkeit nicht vorhanden ist, kann auch ihre Ausnahme, d.h. ein Wunder, nicht existieren." D. Reichenstein, Die Religion der Gebildeten (1941), p. 21). However, it is clear from the context that Einstein was stating only that miracles cannot exist in a domain (quantum mechanics) where lawful rationality does not exist. He did not claim that miracles could never exist in any domain. Indeed, Einstein clearly believed, as seen in many quotations above, that the universe was comprehensible and rational, but he also described this characteristic of the universe as a "miracle". In another example, he is quoted as claiming belief in a God, "Who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world."
As quoted in From Yale to Jail: The Life Story of a Moral Dissenter (1993) by David T. Dellinger, p. 418
Disputed
Variant: There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.
Variant: There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.
“Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.”
Variant: "Where can I find a man who has forgotten words? He is the one I would like to talk to."
Context: A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words. Where can I find someone who's forgotten words so I can have a word with him?...
Lorsque les femmes nous aiment, elles nous pardonnent tout, même nos crimes; lorsqu'elles ne nous aiment pas, elles ne nous pardonnent rien, pas même nos vertus!
La Muse du Département http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/La_Muse_du_d%C3%A9partement_-_II_-_34 (1843), translated by James Waring, part II, ch. XXXIV (part XIII in the translated version).
“Although I think that life may be the result of an accident, I do not think that of consciousness.”
As quoted in The Observer (11 January 1931); also in Psychic Research (1931), Vol. 25, p. 91
Context: Although I think that life may be the result of an accident, I do not think that of consciousness. Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms. For consciousness is absolutely fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else.
“When you attack us, you will see our faces. Not our backs, but our faces.”
Context: But if we come under attack, if we face an attempt to take away our country, our freedom, our lives and the lives of our children, we will defend ourselves. When you attack us, you will see our faces. Not our backs, but our faces.
“The fight is here. I need ammunition, not a ride.”
Source: https://edition.cnn.com/2022/02/26/europe/ukraine-zelensky-evacuation-intl/index.html
“The most terrible iron is not missiles, aircraft, and tanks, but shackles.”
Source: https://twitter.com/kyivindependent/status/1562384096130736128
“Tell me how you read and I'll tell you who you are.”
“Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud.”
Variant: Be a rainbow in somebody else's cloud.
Source: Letter to My Daughter
“Forgiveness is the key to action and freedom.”
“I only fear the death of others. For me, true death is that of the people I love”
“Do not look for my heart any more; the beasts have eaten it.”
Ne cherchez plus mon cœur; des monstres l’ont mangé.
"Causerie" [Conversation] http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Les_Fleurs_du_mal/1857/Causerie
Les fleurs du mal (Flowers of Evil) (1857)
Source: Les Fleurs du Mal
