I Have Spoken To Einstein And He

Some Scientists Find, Or So It Seems, That They Get Their Best Ideas When Smoking; Others By Drinking Coffee Or Whisky. Thus There Is No Reason Why I Should Not Admit That Some May Get Their Ideas By Observing, Or By Repeating Observations.

In Point Of Fact, No Conclusive Disproof Of A Theory Can Ever Be Produced; For It Is Always Possible To Say That The Experimental Results Are Not Reliable Or That The Discrepancies Which Are Asserted To Exist Between The Experimental Results And The Theory Are Only Apparent And That They Will Disappear With The Advance Of Our Understanding. If You Insist On Strict Proof (or Strict Disproof) In The Empirical Sciences, You Will Never Benefit From Experience, And Never Learn From It How Wrong You Are.

A Rationalist Is Simply Someone For Whom It Is More Important To Learn Than To Be Proved Right; Someone Who Is Willing To Learn From Others - Not By Simply Taking Over Another's Opinions, But By Gladly Allowing Others To Criticize His Ideas And By Gladly Criticizing The Ideas Of Others

Philosophy Is A Necessary Activity Because We, All Of Us, Take A Great Number Of Things For Granted, And Many Of These Assumptions Are Of A Philosophical Character; We Act On Them In Private Life, In Politics, In Our Work, And In Every Other Sphere Of Our Lives -- But While Some Of These Assumptions Are No Doubt True, It Is Likely, That More Are False And Some Are Harmful. So The Critical Examination Of Our Presuppositions -- Which Is A Philosophical Activity -- Is Morally As Well As Intellectually Important.

When We Enter A New Situation In Life And Are Confronted By A New Person, We Bring With Us The Prejudices Of The Past And Our Previous Experiences Of People. These Prejudices We Project Upon The New Person. Indeed, Getting To Know A Person Is Largely A Matter Of Withdrawing Projections; Of Dispelling The Smoke Screen Of What We Imagine He Is Like And Replacing It With The Reality Of What He Is Actually Like.