A popular quote online attributed to the Nobel laureate is about the difference between intelligence and wisdom when faced with difficulties. We decided to check if the physicist said anything similar.

This phrase, with attribution to Albert Einstein, can be found at websites quotes from famous personalities collections statements physics on various resources, as well as in posts of social network users (X, "VKontakte", Instagram, Facebook) And blogging platforms. The wording in different sources varies slightly, but the meaning remains the same.

Attributed Einstein the quote is popular not only in Russian, but also in English language, and, unlike translation, in the same version (only the punctuation differs). Over the 70 years that have passed since the physicist's death in 1955, all of his surviving works: scientific works, letters, notes - have been carefully studied, and a significant part of them have been digitized. The largest collection is stored in Hebrew University in Jerusalem, where, according to the will, most of the Nobel laureate's legacy was transferred. Two more large electronic archives of Einstein were collected by employees Princeton University And California Tech University in the USA. “Verified” could not find such a statement in any of them.

In 2011, Princeton University published a collection of the scientist’s aphorisms The Ultimate Quotable Einstein, and the compilers included in it not only real quotes, but also those attributed erroneously, as well as statements by other people about Einstein. However, it was also not possible to find the desired phrase in this work - in any of the sections.

Quote authentication portal Quote Investigator I found out that, apparently, this statement was first attributed to Einstein in the May 14, 1992 issue of the Times Herald newspaper, published in the American state of Michigan. In an article about plans to build a waste incinerator, chemist Paul Connett criticized the initiative, using the phrase in question and attributing it to Einstein. Perhaps, as often happens with statements that have been misattributed, Connett was trying to give his words more weight.

At the same time, the idea itself that a truly wise person does not solve problems, but avoids them, is not new. Quote Investigator found many cases of its use in different formulations similar in meaning and many years before Connett. Mostly, the phrase was cited without specifying the author or attributed to other people, for example, the Israeli Foreign Minister Abbe Evenu. However, with the attribution to Einstein, it spread precisely in the formulation chosen by Connett.

A variety of sayings have been falsely attributed to Albert Einstein. “Verified” has previously repeatedly examined similar cases, including the phrases: “Only a fool needs order, genius reigns over chaos", "The biggest stupidity - do the same thing and hope for a different result", "Only two things are infinite: The Universe and human stupidity." The Nobel laureate had nothing to do with any of them. Slightly less actively distributed on the Internet stories about Einstein. At some point, there were so many such false stories that they even gave rise to the meme “This... was Albert Einstein.”

Thus, there is no reason to believe that Einstein ever compared intelligence and wisdom in the context of approaching problems. It was not possible to find a similar phrase in any of the known archives with the scientist’s texts. This quote was first attributed to him almost 40 years after his death, and this was done by a person far from studying Einstein’s works. Therefore, there is also no reason to assume that he personally discovered this statement in any previously unknown text of the Nobel laureate.

Cover photo: Associated Press, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons