Albert Einstein on Intuition

“I have faith in my intuition, the language of my conscience, but I have no faith in speculation about Heaven and Hell. I'm concerned with this time — here and now.”

“Intuition and the opportunity to be at the right place at the right time. I couldn't have come to my conclusions without the discoveries before me of great scientists.”

“There is no logical way to the discovery of these elemental laws. There is only the way of intuition, which is helped by a feeling for the order lying behind the appearance.”

“Prophet or not, what I say is more often felt through intuition than thought-through-intellect.I hope the nations will learn their lesson, that there is no security in national armies. After the war we must renounce all military defense and create an atmposphere of international trust.”

“Knowledge is necessary, too. An intuitive child couldn't accomplish anything without some knowledge. There will come a point in everyone's life, however, where only intuition can make the leap ahead, without ever knowing precisely how. One can never know why, but one must accept intuition as fact.”

“There are only two limiting factors: first, that what seems impenetrable to us is as important as what is cut and dried, and, second that our faculties are dull and can only comprehend wisdom and serene beauty in crude forms, but the heart of man through intuition leads us to greater understanding of ourselves and the universe.”

“The truly religious man has no fear of life and no fear of death; his faith must be in his conscience. Then he will have the intuition to observe and judge what happens around him. Then, he can acknowledge that everything unfolds true to strict natural law, sometimes with tremendous speed. I am therefore against all organized religion, too often in history, men have followed the cry of battle rather than the cry of truth.”

“My intuition made me work. Many people think that the progress of the human race is based on experiences of an empirical, critical nature, but I say that true knowledge is to be had only through a philosophy of deduction. For it is intuition that improves the world, not just following the trodden path of thought. Intuition makes us look at unrelated facts and then think about them until they can all be brought under one law. To look for related facts means holding onto what one has instead of searching for new facts. Intuition is the father of new knowledge, while empiricism is nothing but an accumulation of old knowledge. Intuition, not intellect, is the open “sesame” of yourself.”