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Albert Einstein

Theoretical physicist, 1879–1955. 2 explained quotes and 1 wrongly credited to them.

Photograph portrait of Albert Einstein
≈ Paraphrase · Start here
“God does not play dice with the universe.”
Albert Einstein · 1926
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≈ Paraphrase
“God does not play dice with the universe.”
Albert Einstein · Letter to Max Born · 1926 · Scientist

Einstein rejected the idea that quantum mechanics is fundamentally random. “God” was his way of talking about the laws of nature, not a personal God.

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“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
Albert Einstein · Interview with George Sylvester Viereck, “What Life Means to Einstein,” The Saturday Evening Post · 1929 · Scientist

Einstein says knowledge is limited to what we already understand, while imagination reaches beyond it. He was describing how he made discoveries.

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✕ Misattributed
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
Often credited to Albert Einstein · Narcotics Anonymous basic text (earliest known version) · 1981

A saying from the recovery movement of the early 1980s. There is no trace of it in Einstein's papers, letters or interviews.

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About Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein developed the theories of special and general relativity, explained the photoelectric effect, for which he won the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics, and became the most famous scientist in the world. A Jewish pacifist, he left Germany when the Nazis took power in 1933 and spent the rest of his life at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.

Einstein is the most misquoted scientist in history. Hundreds of sayings about imagination, insanity, fish climbing trees and more are credited to him without any source. His real words survive in the Collected Papers of Albert Einstein and in interviews, and we check each one there.