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Albert Einstein

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There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is.
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As quoted in Journal of France and Germany (1942 - 1944) by Gilbert Fowler White, in excerpt published in Living with Nature's Extremes : The Life of Gilbert Fowler White (2006) by Robert E. Hinshaw, p. 62. From the context it seems that White did not specify whether he had heard Einstein himself say this or whether he was repeating a quote that had been passed along by someone else, so without a primary source the validity of this quote should be considered questionable, especially given that elsewhere Einstein defined a "miracle" as a type of event he did not believe was possible—Einstein on Religion by Max Jammer (1999) quotes on p. 89 from a 1931 conversation Einstein had with David Reichinstein, where Reichinstein brought up philosopher Arthur Liebert's argument that the indeterminism of quantum mechanics might allow for the possibility of miracles, and Einstein replied that Liebert's argument dealt "with a domain in which lawful rationality [determinism] does not exist. A 'miracle,' however, is an exception from lawfulness; hence, there where lawfulness does not exist, also its exception, i.e., a miracle, cannot exist." ('Dort, wo eine Gesetzmässigkeit nicht vorhanden ist, kann auch ihre Ausnahme, d.h. ein Wunder, nicht existieren.' D. Reichenstein, Die Religion der Gebildeten (1941), p. 21)
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Variant: 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.
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As quoted in From Yale to Jail : The Life Story of a Moral Dissenter? (1993) by David T. Dellinger, p. 418

 
Albert Einstein

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