Albert Einstein

Einstein (1879-1955), born in Ulm, Germany, was perhaps the greatest theoretical physicists of all time. While teaching at a Swiss university, Einstein worked as a patent clerk in Berne and published six important papers in physics. His work contributed greatly to the understanding of matter and energy, and proposed the now famous relationship between mass and energy, E=Mc2. He is perhaps best known for his Theory of Relativity. Einstein won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922 for his work on the Photoelectric Effect. Leaving Nazi Germany in 1933 to escape increasing anti-semitism, Einstein accepted an invitation to the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton, New Jersey, where he spent the rest of his life. Although a pacifist, he was instrumental in convincing President Roosevelt to pursue atomic weapons to hasten the end of World War II.

(Einstein is perhaps the most quoted figure on the internet)

1. The difference between what the most and the least learned people know is inexpressibly trivial in relation to that which is unknown.

2. When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.

3. Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.

4. An empty stomach is not a good political advisor.

5. Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.

6. The grand aim of all science is to cover the greatest number of empirical facts by logical deduction from the smallest number of hypotheses or axioms. - from Life Magazine, 1/9/50

7. I think and think for months and years. Ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right.

8. The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious - the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. - from Living Philosophies, 1931

9. I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.

10. When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute—and it's longer than any hour. That's relativity.

11. Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe.

12. The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.

13. If A equals success, then the formula is A equals X plus Y plus Z. X is work. Y is play. Z is keep your mouth shut. Recalled on his death 18 Apr 55

14. A photograph never grows old. You and I change, people change all through the months and years, but a photograph always remains the same. How nice to look at a photograph of mother or father taken many years ago. You see them as you remember them. But as people live on, they change completely. That is why I think a photograph can be kind.

Dwight d. Eisenhower

Eisenhower (1890-1969) was born in Denison, Texas. He graduated from West Point in 1915, became a captain during World War I, and served under General Douglas MacArthur in the 1930's. After US entry into World War II he was selected as commander of US forces in Europe, and led invasions of North Africa and Italy. He planned and led the Allied invasion of Europe. After the war he succeeded General George C. Marshall as Army Chief of Staff, then retired to become president of Columbia University. In 1951 he returned to service as supreme commander of NATO, and in 1952 'Ike' ran for election and became the 34th US President.

1. I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.

2. An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows.

3. Whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the world must first come to pass in the heart of America. - from his Inaugural address 1/20/53

4. Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you're a thousand miles from the corn field.- from an address at Peoria, IL 9/25/56

5. The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without.

6. Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.

7. The most terrible job in warfare is to be a second lieutenant leading a platoon when you are on the battlefield. - 3/17/54

8. Neither a wise nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future to run over him.- from a Presidential campaign speech, Time Magazine, 10/6/52

9. Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels - men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.

10. The clearest way to show what the rule of law means to us in everyday life is to recall what has happened when there is no rule of law. - from an address on the first observance of Law Day, 5/5/58

11. I have only one yardstick by which I test every major problem - and that yardstick is: Is it good for America?

12. Unlike presidential administrations, problems rarely have terminal dates. - from his State of the Union address 1/12/61

13. Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. - from an address to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, 4/16/53

14. The sergeant is the Army.