Raffiniert ist der Herrgott, aber boshaft ist er nicht.
God is subtle but he is not malicious. - Remark made at Princeton University, May 1921, in R. W. Clark Einstein (1973) ch. 1
Jedenfalls bin ich überzeugt, dass der nicht würfelt. - At any rate, I am convinced that He [God] does not play dice. - Letter to Max Born, 4 December 1926; in Einstein und Born Briefwechsel (1969) p. 1 (often quoted: -Gott würfelt nicht [God does not play dice]-)
If my theory of relativity is proven correct, Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare that I am a citizen of the world. Should my theory prove untrue, France will say that I am a German and Germany will declare that I am a Jew. - Address at the Sorbonne, Paris, possibly early December 1929, in New York Times 16 February 1930
The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe. Telegram to prominent Americans, 24 May 1946, in New York Times 25 May 1946
If A is a success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut. - In Observer 15 January 1950
If I would be a young man again and had to decide how to make my living, I would not try to become a scientist or scholar or teacher. I would rather choose to be a plumber or a peddler in the hope to find that modest degree of independence still available under present circumstances. - Reporter 18 Nov. 1954
Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind. Science, Philosophy and Religion: a Symposium (1941) ch. 13
Equations are more important to me, because politics is for the present, but an equation is something for eternity.
In Stephen Hawking A Brief History of Time (1988) p. 1. See also C. P. Snow -Einstein- in M. Goldsmith et al. (eds.) Einstein (1980) p. 1
Nationalism is an infantile sickness. It is the measles of the human race. - In Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman Albert Einstein, the Human Side (1979) p. 3
I never think of the future. It comes soon enough. - In an interview, given on the Belgenland, December 1930
I am an absolute pacifist….It is an instinctive feeling. It is a feeling that possesses me, because the murder of men is disgusting. Interview with Paul Hutchinson, in Christian Century 28 Aug. 1929