A calm and modest life brings more happiness than the pursuit of success combined with constant restlessness.

Long live impudence! It’s my guardian angel in this world.

A happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwell too much on the future.

Three rules of work: Out of clutter find simplicity; From discord find harmony; In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.

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.

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.

A person starts to live when he can live outside himself. 

One lives one’s life under constant tension, until it is time to go for good. 

I have remained a simple fellow who asks nothing of the world; only my youth is gone – the enchanting youth that forever walks on air.

I no longer need to take part in the competition of the big brains. Participating [in the process] has always seem to me an awful type of slavery no less evil than the passion for money or power.

I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for everyone, best both for the body and the mind.

Compassionate people are geniuses in the art of living, more necessary to the dignity, security, and joy of humanity than the discoverers of knowledge.

The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there’s no risk of accident for someone who’s dead.

I have firmly resolved to bite the dust, when my time comes, with a minimum of medical assistance, and up to then I will sin to my wicked heart’s content.

The old who have died live on in the young ones. Don’t you feel this now in your bereavement, when you look at your children?

Our death is not an end if we have lived on in our children and the younger generations. For they are us; our bodies are only wilted leaves on the tree of life.

This life is not such that we ought to complain when it comes to an end for us or for a loved one; rather, we may look back in satisfaction when it has been bravely and honorably withstood.

I am strongly drawn to a frugal life and am often oppressively aware that I am engrossing an undue amount of the labor of my fellow-men.

I am glad that you have given me the opportunity of expressing to you here my deep sense of gratitude as a man, as a good European, and as a Jew.

I believe that whatever we do or live for has its causality; it is good, however, that we cannot see through to it.

People like you and I, though mortal of course, like everyone else, do not grow old no matter how long we live. What I mean is that we never cease to stand like curious children before the great mystery into which we were born.

I am satisfied with the mystery of the eternity of life and with the awareness and a glimpse of the marvelous structure of the existing world, together with the devoted striving to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the Reason that manifest itself in nature.

I am happy at the thought that the worst worries are over for my parents.

One of the strongest motives that lead men to art and science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness, from the fetters of one’s own ever-shifting desires. A finely tempered nature longs to escape from the personal life into the world of objective perception and thought.

May they not forget to keep pure the great heritage that puts them ahead of the West: the artistic configuration of life, the simplicity and modesty of personal needs, and the purity and serenity of the Japanese soul.

What depressed me most is, of course, the misfortune of my poor parents who have not had a happy moment for so many years. What further hurts deeply is that as an adult man, I have to look on without being able to do anything.

The satisfaction of physical needs is indeed the indispensable precondition of a satisfactory existence, but in itself it is not enough. In order to be content, men must also have the possibility of developing their intellectual and artistic powers to whatever extent accords with their personal characteristics and abilities.

I just read a wonderful paper by Lenard on the generation of cathode rays by ultraviolet light. Under the influence of this beautiful piece, I am filled with such happiness and joy that I absolutely must share some of it with you.

Human beings can attain a worthy and harmonious life only if they are able to rid themselves, within the limits of human nature, of striving to fulfill wishes of the material kind.

Live with purpose. Don’t let people or things around you get you down.

Death is a reality… Life ends definitely when the subject, by his actions, no longer affects his environment… He can no longer add an iota to the sum total of his experience

Sometimes the only thought that sustains me and is my only refuge from despair is that I have always done everything I could within my small power, and that year in, year out, I have never permitted myself any amusements or diversions except those afforded by my studies.

Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.

I believe in one thing, that only a life lived for others is a life worth living.

The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.

The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education. 

The search for truth is more precious than its possession.

I always get by best with my naivety, which is 20 percent deliberate.

If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.

On the mysterious: It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. He who knows it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle.

To see with one’s own eyes, to feel and judge without succumbing to the suggestive power of the fashion of the day, to be able to express what one has seen and felt in a trim sentence or even in a cunningly wrought word – is that not glorious? Is it not a proper subject for congratulation?

To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science.

Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.

How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it.

Never memorize something that you can look up.

As far as I’m concerned, I prefer silent vice to ostentatious virtue.

God always takes the simplest way.

God always takes the simplest way.

Mankind invented the atomic bomb, but no mouse would ever construct a mousetrap.

Stay away from negative people. They have a problem for every solution.