Albert Einstein Quotes

Feeling and longing are the motive forces behind all human endeavor and human creations.

I think there's something about having a purpose in life and a sense of belonging that is more important than money for any human being.

Philosophy will not be able to effect an immediate transformation of the present condition of the world. This is not only true of philosophy, but of all merely human thought and endeavor.

Man's needs are infinite, and infinitude can be achieved only in the spiritual realm, never in the material.

When people appear to be something other than good and decent, it is only because they are reacting to stress, pain, or the deprivation of basic human needs such as security, love, and self-esteem.

Man’s main concern is not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain but rather to see a meaning in his life.

When you come to the spiritual needs, the emotional needs, the needs of our inner life, then politics and business and technology are completely impotent. They are completely unable to meet and address the needs of human beings.

Can you go a whole day with joy in your heart? Joy and vitality are an inseparable combination. Joy is not concerned with having fun; it is an inner spiritual quality that overcomes despair, pain and defeat. You cannot turn on joy like an electric light, but you can prepare yourself to receive it.

Even if man's hunger and thirst and his sexual strivings are completely satisfied, 'he' is not satisfied. In contrast to the animal his most compelling problems are not solved then, they only begin. He strives for power or for love, or for destruction, he risks his life for religious, for political, for humanistic ideals, and these strivings are what constitutes and characterizes the peculiarity of human life.

You must have failed deeply on some level or experienced some deep loss or pain to be drawn to the spiritual dimension. Or perhaps your very success became empty and meaningless and so turned out to be a failure.

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding... And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy

This food-and-shelter theory concerning man's efforts is without insight. The desire for praise is more imperative than the desire for food and shelter

I am going to tell you a secret. Everything is about wanting. Everything. Things happen because of people wanting. Watch closely, and you’ll see what I mean.

Our Creator has put in us hungers that this earth can- not satisfy. We cannot be completely self-contained on earth. Physical sense cannot give us a full life, nor can knowledge alone. No life is full unless it is linked to some- thing that goes on after we are dead.... If we have nothing more to live for than just to get ahead in a competitive system, then democracy will go down before other philosophies.

There is a candle in your heart, ready to be kindled. There is a void in your soul, ready to be filled. You feel it, don't you?

The ego wants to want more than it wants to have.

How can a man find a sensible way to live? One way and one only- Philosophy. And my philosophy means keeping that vital spark within you free from damage and degradation, using it to transcend pain and pleasure, doing everything with a purpose, avoiding lies and hypocrisy, not relying on another person's actions or failings. To accept everything that comes, and everything that is given, as coming from that same spiritual source.

Pleasure and pain are the only springs of action in man, and always will be.

We can invoke spiritual compensation when we find ourselves in situations of material lack.

Among the great things which are found among us the existence of Nothing is the greatest.

Beneath our frantic activities, there's a deep desire to show the world we are worthwhile.

Plato is philosophy, and philosophy, Plato,--at once the glory and the shame of mankind, since neither Saxon nor Roman have availed to add any idea to his categories.

I think that voodoo as a spiritual tradition has been demonized for so long in popular culture. I wanted to write against that and write a character who practiced that spiritual tradition who was not evil and intent on creating zombies or causing pain through voodoo dolls or whatever.

I know what love feels like. That is one thing I have found. That is one thing that is much clearer because of fibromyalgia. Because once you experience real pain you recognize the vibration, the feeling of being healthy, happy and loved. If I'm not living from my heart, I get sick. I need to do things that feed my soul, like being with people I love, or playing my guitar, or listening to music.

Happiness comes from spiritual wealth, not material wealth... Happiness comes from giving, not getting. If we try hard to bring happiness to others, we cannot stop it from coming to us also. To get joy, we must give it, and to keep joy, we must scatter it. .