Who really said it

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

Q: Did Albert Einstein say "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"?

No. There is no Einstein source. The earliest located instance is a 1942 note kept by the American geographer Gilbert Fowler White, who wrote the saying down and attributed it to Einstein — but left no indication of where he had heard or read it. That is the whole documentary trail: a private notebook, a name, and no citation. Princeton University Press's The Ultimate Quotable Einstein files it under 'Probably Not By Einstein.'

Unknown — the trail stops at a 1942 private notebook Unknown Anonymous · earliest located instance 1942

Disputed Rights unconfirmed

There is no Einstein source. The earliest located instance is a 1942 note kept by the American geographer Gilbert Fowler White, who wrote the saying down and attributed it to Einstein — but left no indication of where he had heard or read it. That is the whole documentary trail: a private notebook, a name, and no citation. Princeton University Press’s The Ultimate Quotable Einstein files it under ‘Probably Not By Einstein.’

Last verified 21 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

For presentations

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“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” An anonymous saying, earliest located in a 1942 private note; the idea goes back to Victorian sermons. Not Albert Einstein.

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Albert Einstein. Use the credit shown above instead.

Can you use it?

We couldn’t verify where this wording comes from, so there’s no rights status to give. Safe to present as an unverified or anonymous line — just don’t assert a specific author or source.

Image direction — grounded in this quote’s real context; paste into your image tool

In context

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Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "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". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The source

Earliest located: Private note by Gilbert Fowler White, 1942
Attribution given there: Einstein — with no citation
Older relatives: 1839 religious text; Basil Wilberforce sermon, 1896
Einstein source: None — no instance in his own writings

Everything is a miracle, or nothing is a miracle. Basil Wilberforce, sermon, 1896

The Victorian sermon version, as reported by Quote Investigator. The bones are identical — two exclusive ways of seeing, and the second is the pious one — but the setting is a pulpit argument about whether God intervenes in nature, which is not what people mean when they post it today.

Quote Investigator — the 1942 note and the older sermons

How we traced it

The 1942 White note is the earliest instance located, and it is a dead end rather than an origin: it already carries the Einstein credit, so it tells us the attribution existed by 1942 and nothing at all about whether it was earned the trace ↗.
The idea is much older and comes from theology, not physics. A religious text of 1839 makes the same either/or move about miracles, Canon Basil Wilberforce preached a version in 1896, and Edward S. Drown discussed the same dichotomy in a theological article in 1913 — all of them arguing about Augustine, none of them about relativity.
Nothing in Einstein’s published papers, letters or recorded remarks contains it. Alice Calaprice’s standard collection places it in the ‘Probably Not By Einstein’ section, the same verdict as the ‘time keeps everything from happening at once’ line.

We are omitting a rights status, because there is no attributable text to attach one to. The 19th-century religious sources are long out of copyright. The saying in its modern form has no identified author and no identified first publication, so no copyright term can be calculated — that is a gap in the record, not a grant of freedom. If you quote it, quote it as anonymous rather than as Einstein. This is not legal advice.

Fact-check

The attribution problem

This is the frustrating kind of case. There is no smoking gun, no moment where a hoax began — just a saying that was already wearing Einstein’s name the first time anyone wrote it down.

Not Albert Einstein no source located

Nothing in his papers, letters, lectures or recorded remarks. Princeton University Press files it under ‘Probably Not By Einstein’ — deliberately hedged wording, because the absence of evidence in a corpus this large is strong but not absolute the trace ↗.

Gilbert Fowler White wrote it down, did not write it earliest instance, not the origin

White was a distinguished geographer, not a fabricator, and his note is evidence that the saying and the Einstein credit were both already in circulation by 1942. Where he got either is unknown. An earliest located instance is not the same thing as an origin, and we do not claim it is.

The idea is older and religious antecedent

The either/or about miracles appears in an 1839 religious text, in Basil Wilberforce’s 1896 preaching and in a 1913 theological article on Augustine — decades before anyone put a physicist’s name on it.

Not a statement about physics context drift

It is now quoted as a scientist blessing everyday wonder. Its ancestors were arguing a narrower point: whether divine intervention in nature is exceptional or continuous. That is a theological dispute, not an invitation to appreciate sunsets.

Author unknown. The earliest located instance is a 1942 private note that already credits Einstein and gives no source; the underlying idea comes from 19th-century religious writing the trace ↗.

Context

Why it resonates

It offers a choice rather than an instruction, which is rare in inspirational writing and is most of why it works. Nobody is being told to believe anything; they are being told there are two settings, and invited to notice which one they have been living in.

It also demands nothing supernatural. You can take ‘everything is a miracle’ as devotion or as plain attentiveness, and the sentence does not force the question — which is exactly the ambiguity a Victorian preacher would have wanted to close and a modern reader wants left open.

The first person to write it down already said 'Einstein', and already gave no source.

What Einstein did say about wonder

He wrote repeatedly about ‘cosmic religious feeling’ — awe at the order of nature, without a personal God attached.

The best-known genuine line in that register is about the mysterious being the finest thing we can experience, and it is sourced, unlike this one.

He was also blunt that he did not believe in a God who intervenes in human affairs, which sits awkwardly with reading ‘miracle’ literally here.

None of that makes this sentence his. It explains why it sounds like it should be.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

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Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Quote Origin: There Are Only Two Ways To Live Your Lifequoteinvestigator.com

The archival investigation: the 1942 White note, the 1839/1896/1913 religious antecedents, and the verdict of anonymity.

6 Things Albert Einstein Never Saidhistory.com

Context on the industrial scale of false Einstein attributions and how the Princeton editors triage them.

Talk:Albert Einstein — sourcing discussionen.wikiquote.org

Editors’ working notes on which Einstein lines carry citations; this one has never had one.

Popularly credited author

Why it gets pinned on Einstein

Albert Einstein

1879–1955 · theoretical physicist

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) did write seriously about wonder — his ‘cosmic religious feeling’ essays argue that awe at the order of nature is the deepest motive a scientist has — which makes this particular fake unusually plausible. It sounds like the tone of things he really said, without matching anything he actually wrote. That is the hardest kind of misattribution to dislodge: not out of character, just unsupported.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source — Chicago

Anonymous saying. Earliest located instance: private note by Gilbert Fowler White, 1942, already crediting Einstein without citation. Antecedents in religious writing from 1839; Basil Wilberforce sermon, 1896.

MLA (9th ed.)

“There are only two ways to live your life.” Anonymous saying; earliest located instance 1942.

APA (7th ed.)

There are only two ways to live your life. (1942). Anonymous saying [earliest located instance].

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘There are only two ways to live your life’?” Last verified 21 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/there-are-only-two-ways-to-live-your-life-one-is-as