In an effort to lighten up a little from all things GIS, I present some of my favorite Albert Einstein’s quotes.

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.

Great spirits have often encountered violent opposition from weak minds.

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

Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.

Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one’s living at it.

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

The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.

The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.

Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal.

We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.

Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school.

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

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.

Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts. (Sign hanging in Einstein’s office at Princeton)

And my favorite not actually from Einstein…

You’re aware the boy failed my grade school math class, I take it? And not that many years later he’s teaching college. Now I ask you: Is that the sorriest indictment of the American educational system you ever heard? [pauses to light cigarette.] No aptitude at all for long division, but never mind. It’s him they ask to split the atom. How he talked his way into the Nobel prize is beyond me. But then, I suppose it’s like the man says, “It’s not what you know… (Karl Arbeiter: former teacher of Albert Einstein)

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