Albert Einstein

I stumbled across some Albert Einstein quotes today that I thought were worth posting. I've included my initial, random thoughts after each quote. Not until compiling them all did I realize I did a crappy job of skeptically checking all the sources to make sure they were credible, so I default to assume these are all fake and take it with a grain of salt. I’m too busy to go back and confirm each source. That said, enjoy:

"God did not create evil. Just as darkness is the absence of light, evil is the absence of God."

Pretty obvious statement for anyone but an atheist, but stated well nonetheless.

"I'd rather be an optimist and a fool than a pessimist and right."

I like how Walter Mathau said this as a fictitious Einstein in the oh-so-silly 90’s romantic comedy, IQ.

"You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat."

I hate cats.

"Any fool can know. The point is to understand. "

This quote could be used well in a conversation about living by principles, rather than rules without understanding the principles behind them.

"Never memorize what you can look up"

All of a sudden I feel better about using my GPS to find a house around the corner.

"If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales."

I can do that.

"Creativity is knowing how to hide your sources"

As a songwriter, I reluctantly admit this is 100% true. I once new a girl that was so infatuated with the band Radiohead that she claimed they were they only band that made truly original songs, having no influence from any previous music. Which is just stupid.

"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."

No, I am not a Scientologist. Yes, I have jumped up and down on Oprah’s couch.

"If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself."

True from music to theology to why the sky is blue (because it reflects the ocean, stop asking questions).

"The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax."

This quote would not be so golden if it wasn’t from a man who understood crazy difficult things.