The opinion prevailed among advanced minds that it was time that belief should be replaced increasingly by knowledge; belief that did not itself rest on knowledge was superstition, and as such had to be opposed.
If my theory of relativity is proven successful, Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare me 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.
He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice.
I never allow myself to become discouraged under any circumstances. The three great essentials to achieve anything worthwhile are first, hard work, second, stick-to-ittiveness, third, common sense.
It strikes me as unfair, and even in bad taste, to select a few of them for boundless admiration, attributing superhuman powers of mind and character to them. This has been my fate, and the contrast between the popular estimate of my powers and achievements and the reality is simply grotesque.
Artists and creative workers - people who have accomplished work worthwhile have had a very high sense of the way to do things. They haven't been contented with mediocrity. They haven't confined themselves to the beaten tracks; they have never been satisfied to do things just as others do them, but always a little better. Few are those who see with their own eyesand feel with their own hearts.
The years of anxious searching in the dark, with their intense longing, their alternations of confidence and exhaustion and the final emergence into the light -- only those who have experienced it can understand it.