“I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.”
So am i. People often say how smart i am, how much i know about computers and stuff.. Also people find computers to be difficult, but they are not. I do not feel that i am sort of genius, i just know how to read and search for more information if i dont understand something. I dont expect my desired result to fly out of my ass. I can say same thing about any subject im good at. And subjects im not good at – i can say im not interested in them.
“It’s not that I’m so smart; it’s just that I stay with problems longer.”
Is he talking about me? I play hardly any games now. Yes, i do play them, everyone needs to relax, but must of my time i spend coding something. I just love solving interesting issues, and when i find something interesting to work on – i do it like a machine, no time to eat, no time to rest. It is only me and my goal in all the world, everything else fades. I guess it is passion. Other people often see issues, i try to see solutions, and i do pretty well.
“Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves.”
Multitasking is indeed counterproductive. Dont do it. I try not to, but here i fail. Can not do anything to myself.. Guilty :)
“Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions. Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
Knowledge is just a static information. One can not produce more knowledge based on knowledge he has only. Additional input is required. One has to be creative, think of ways that have never been thought of, imagine “what ifs”. This is a way of knowing.
“A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.”
And today it is a sin to make mistakes. People in a way are discouraged to try things out, thats how all average Joes are born… I try to do whatever i like, and i often fail, but in the process i learn much, so its no loss on my part.
“I never think of the future – it comes soon enough.”
Ohh i do live in the moment. I mean i do not really have any future. Sons of businessmen are meant to inherit business of their fathers and lead a certain life, and what am i meant to do? I do not know. Until i find out i have nothing to look out in the future.
“Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.”
Because successful men make their world better, valuable men make all world better.
“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
That is why people need imagination – so they could think of ways doing what they need differently.
“Information is not knowledge. The only source of knowledge is experience.”
I could go to college, i could get degree, but i did not. I felt like i had been robbed of 12 years in school already, and that gave me no valuable knowledge above basics. I spent my hours coding this and that instead of doing homework. Now i know more than my graduate classmates will know after few years when they graduate. I wish there were more self taught people..
“You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.”
One must know what he is doing, in order to succeed doing it.
Thanks goes to SeeingBlue for finding these quotes.
I agree with almost all of your views in Einstein’s quotes. What I do disagree is :
“Information is not knowledge. The only source of knowledge is experience.”
Well, I disagree with that the only source of knowledge is experience. My view is that you can create
knowledge from things that you already know, even before you start having experience of anything.
I will give you an example. You don’t need experiance to find out whether the following is true or not:
“A statement can be either true or false”. You already know, without experience, that the previous statement is true.
The implications of the above statement are profound: You can create without any experience, just with thinking the whole theory of mathematical logic.
This is an example of knowledge created by without the need of experience.
So in my view the quote would be more accurate if it was:
“A source of knowledge is experience.”
To be honest with you, what Einstein present in this quote is his deep believe in a phylosophical theory called Empiricism. The source of his belief is that he was working with Physical Sciences (in physical science almost all knowledge was based on experience at his days).
Today, however, epmiricism isn’t that blindly accepted as it was at early 90’s. That is, because of the developement of non Eucledian geometries. It kind of fail there…
There is a great book, fairly easy to read, about those phylosophical trends by Stewart Shapiro.
Send me a mail if you want any further information on this matter.