"It is certainly true that principles cannot..." - Quote by Albert Einstein
It is certainly true that principles cannot be more securely founded than on experience and consciously clear thinking.
More by Albert Einstein
“Why do people speak of great men in terms of nationality? Great Germans, great Englishmen? Goethe always protested against being called a German poet. Great men are simply men and are not to be considered from the point of view of nationality, nor should the environment in which they were brought up be taken into account.”
“James Clerk Maxwell's [work is the] most profound and the most fruitful.”
“Members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes, separate the electorate from the legislature. The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population.”
More on Principles
“My principles are more important than the money or my title.”
“I don't believe in any form of unjustified extremism! But when a man is exercising extremism -- a human being is exercising extremism -- in defense of liberty for human beings it's no vice, and when one is moderate in the pursuit of justice for human beings I say he is a sinner.”
“My experience teaches me that truth can never be propagated by doing violence.”
More on Experience
“You must learn to stop thinking in terms of beginnings and endings, successes and failures, and begin to treat everything in your life as a learning experience instead of a proving one.”
“The greatest events-they are not our loudest but our stillest hours.”
“When you realize that eternity is right here now, that it is within your possibility to experience the eternity of your own truth and being, then you grasp the following: That which you are was never born and will never die. . . . (90)”