Albert Einstein was a genius when it came to physics.

But the mad prof also had some pretty wise things to say about life in general.

1 — “Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”

Einstein the Comedian has entered the chat.

This glibly sardonic quote contains more wisdom than we might like to admit. We read it as a challenge not to add to that stupidity!

And given our modern understanding of physics—that the universe does, in fact, appear to be finite—Einstein's wry observation is looking more worryingly accurate by the day.

2 — “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”

A refreshing counterpoint to the first quote! Einstein wasn't that cynical after all.

And this deceptively simple quote conceals a timeless truth: That so much of life (even if you're a legendary physicist with an IQ of 180) is a matter of choosing your thoughts wisely.

3 — "Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”

This one is interesting, because it perhaps gives us a rare insight into Einstein's much-debated thought process.

And it's revealing—especially for those of us who imagine that the old sage thought with machine-like precision in unbroken chains of logical reasoning.

On the contrary, multiple accounts—including this one right from the horse's mouth—suggest Einstein attributed much of his genius to letting his mind wander. 

He seems to have used the imaginative power of daydreaming as a tool for thinking outside the box. And his resulting discoveries speak for themselves.

4 — “If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself.”

Here we get echoes of Richard Feynman.

A physicist only slightly less celebrated than Einstein himself, Feynman was a huge advocate for learning by teaching.

The modern-day 'Feynman Technique' essentially suggests that the most effective way to learn about a topic is to think about how you'd teach it to someone with no understanding of it.

This forces you to strip out the technical jargon from your mental framework of a topic, condensing it to its deepest and most fundamental truths.

It's interesting to note that both eminent physicists arrived at the same conclusion. A highly practical approach to learning that anyone can put into action immediately.

5 — “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”

Was Einstein into Eastern philosophy? We doubt the topic was unfamiliar to him: This quote resembles the Chinese analogy of the salmon. That is to say, if you're not swimming up the river, you're dropping back.

Interestingly, most modern-day commentators on productivity seem to agree on the message here: That even if you can't always make the progress you want to make each day, you should strive to make some progress.

6 — “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”

Einstein once again finds himself in good company with this quote. 

Innovators no less eminent than Henry Ford and Thomas Edison have both espoused similar sentiments regarding the proper attitude to failure.

Or to put it into more Edisonian terms—the process of discovering several ways that don't work, en route to finding one that does.

7 — “Never memorize something that you can look up.”

A curiously relevant one in the post-internet era!

It's easy to assume that the "old school" of great thinkers belonged, by necessity, to a school of Luddites who would disapprove altogether of our modern dependence on tech.

But apparently not. 

A refreshingly practical bit of advice from Einstein, who we can imagine would prefer to Google something than to commit unnecessary mental energy to memorizing it. We're starting to see why he didn't make a great student!

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As you can see, physics was far from the limit of Einstein’s knowledge.

We wonder if somewhere out there, there exists a parallel universe in which the eccentric scientist instead decided to become a life coach.

If so, his image is probably just as recognizable in that other universe. And there’s probably someone there just like us making posters of Einstein too!