Skip to main content

Science Quote by Albert Einstein

"Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater"

About this Quote

Einstein’s genius gets smuggled in here as a punchline. He takes the most intimidation-heavy subject in modern education and punctures it with a casual reversal: the world’s most famous physicist admits he’s still struggling. The line works because it refuses the usual hero narrative. Instead of presenting mathematics as a mountain he conquered, he frames it as weather: ongoing, persistent, no one’s fully above it.

The specific intent is partly pedagogical, partly reputational judo. He’s reassuring a student (or a public that mythologizes him) that difficulty isn’t evidence of incompetence; it’s the normal condition of serious thinking. But the subtext is sharper: what you call “difficulties in Mathematics” is often just the first layer of a problem. Einstein’s “still greater” difficulties hint at the frontier, where math stops being classroom material and becomes invention, notation, and conceptual wrestling. He’s not confessing to being bad at algebra; he’s gesturing toward the kind of work where even the tools are unfinished.

Context matters because Einstein became a cultural shorthand for effortless brilliance. That myth turns learning into a personality test: you either “have it” or you don’t. This remark sabotages that binary. It’s also a subtle flex. Only someone securely inside the temple gets to crack a joke about how the temple keeps expanding. The wit is humane, but it’s also a warning: if you want mathematics to feel easy, you’re asking it to be smaller than it is.

Quote Details

TopicWitty One-Liners
More Quotes by Albert Add to List
Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater
Click to enlarge Portrait | Landscape

About the Author

Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein (March 14, 1879 - April 18, 1955) was a Physicist from Germany.

159 more quotes available

View Profile

Similar Quotes

Stefan Banach, Mathematician
Heather O'Rourke, Actress
Small: Heather O'Rourke