Skip to main content

Science & Tech Quote by Albert Einstein

"It stands to the everlasting credit of science that by acting on the human mind it has overcome man's insecurity before himself and before nature"

About this Quote

Science isn’t just a toolkit here; it’s a psychological solvent. Einstein frames its “everlasting credit” less as a list of gadgets than as a moral and mental achievement: science changes what it feels like to be human. The key move is “acting on the human mind,” a phrase that quietly shifts the battleground from laboratories to consciousness. He’s arguing that the scientific method doesn’t merely explain nature; it re-trains the brain away from superstition, fatalism, and the reflex to personalize chaos.

The sentence pivots on “insecurity before himself and before nature,” pairing inner turmoil with external threat. That doubling matters. Modernity isn’t only storms, disease, and earthquakes; it’s the anxiety of being a self in a world that doesn’t care. Einstein suggests science answers both forms of dread by replacing mysterious forces with intelligible patterns, and by giving people a sense of agency grounded in evidence rather than wish. “Overcome” is strong - not “reduced,” not “managed.” He’s making an aspirational claim about intellectual emancipation: knowledge as a cure for existential flinching.

Contextually, it reads like a mid-century defense of rational inquiry after Europe’s catastrophes, when faith in “progress” was badly bruised. Einstein, a refugee from nationalist madness, isn’t naive about human behavior; he’s staking out a narrower hope. Science can’t guarantee wisdom or decency, but it can disarm a particular kind of fear - the kind that makes people reach for myth, scapegoats, and strongmen when reality feels ungraspable.

Quote Details

TopicScience
SourceHelp us find the source
Cite

Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Einstein, Albert. (2026, January 17). It stands to the everlasting credit of science that by acting on the human mind it has overcome man's insecurity before himself and before nature. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/it-stands-to-the-everlasting-credit-of-science-34867/

Chicago Style
Einstein, Albert. "It stands to the everlasting credit of science that by acting on the human mind it has overcome man's insecurity before himself and before nature." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/it-stands-to-the-everlasting-credit-of-science-34867/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"It stands to the everlasting credit of science that by acting on the human mind it has overcome man's insecurity before himself and before nature." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/it-stands-to-the-everlasting-credit-of-science-34867/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.

More Quotes by Albert Add to List
Einstein on Science and the Formation of the Mind
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

William Gilbert, Composer
William Gilbert
Aristotle, Philosopher
Aristotle