§ VI — In His Words

Quotes

Einstein may be the most misquoted person in history. Every line in the first list has a documented source; the second list is what he did not say.

Verified

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

— Albert Einstein, interview with George Sylvester Viereck, The Saturday Evening Post, 26 October 1929, 1929 Source

Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.

— Albert Einstein, interview with George Sylvester Viereck, The Saturday Evening Post, 1929 Source

I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world.

— Albert Einstein, telegram to Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein, reported in The New York Times, 25 April 1929, 1929 Source

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.

— Albert Einstein, "What I Believe," Forum and Century, October 1930, 1930 Source

I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.

— Albert Einstein, remark to reporters aboard the Belgenland, New York, December 1930, 1930 Source

It is the same with people as it is with riding a bike. Only when moving can one comfortably maintain one's balance.

— Albert Einstein, letter to his son Eduard, 5 February 1930 (the popular "Life is like riding a bicycle" is a loose paraphrase), 1930 Source

Subtle is the Lord, but malicious He is not.

— Albert Einstein, remark at Princeton University, later inscribed in German above a fireplace in Fine Hall, 1921 Source

I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.

— Albert Einstein, letter to Carl Seelig, 11 March 1952, 1952 Source

Only a life lived for others is the life worth while.

— Albert Einstein, reply to the youth magazine Youth, reported in The New York Times, 20 June 1932, 1932 Source

Things He Never Said

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
The earliest known appearances are in addiction-recovery literature from 1981. It was being credited to Einstein by 1990. Source
“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
No trace in anything he wrote or said. The fable of animals judged by the wrong test dates to 1898, and his name was first attached to this line in 2004. Source
“Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world.”
No evidence he said it. The line appears in a 1925 savings-and-loan advertisement with no name attached; it was first credited to Einstein in the 1980s. Source
“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.”
Written by the sociologist William Bruce Cameron in 1963. It was first linked to Einstein in 1986. Source
“If the bee disappeared off the face of the Earth, man would only have four years left to live.”
No source in anything he wrote or said. The four-year claim was first pinned on him in French beekeeping magazines in 1965 and spread widely from 1994. Source
“I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots.”
A twenty-first-century invention. The earliest known appearances are online, from 2012. Source
“If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.”
No source has ever been found. A related saying, about explaining physics to a barmaid, is more often traced to Ernest Rutherford. Source
“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”
Known only from the psychiatrist Fritz Perls, who credited it to "a great astronomer" in 1947 and named Einstein in 1969. There is no direct source, so it cannot be confirmed. Source
“Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.”
He did say something close to this in a 1936 address, but credited it to an unnamed wit. The saying was already in print by 1907. Source