Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
Not all important things can be measured numerically, and not all measurable things are important. True value often lies beyond metrics.
In plain terms
Important things aren't always measurable, and measurable things aren't always important.
What can you take from it?
Look beyond numbers to find real value.

Where it applies

  • Performance reviews
  • Life choices
  • Policy making

Putting it to work

  • Value qualitative data
  • Question metrics
  • Assess human impact

Questions to consider

  • What matters to you that can't be counted?
  • When did a number mislead you?

Another view

Metrics are often necessary for objective comparison and scale.

More from Albert Einstein

  1. No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.

    Permalink to quote #218
  2. No, this trick won't work... How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love?

    Permalink to quote #220
  3. My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail…

    Permalink to quote #217

Related quotes

  1. There are many kinds of love, as many kinds of light, And every kind of love makes a glory in the night. There is love that stirs the heart, and love that give…

    Henry van DykeHenry van Dyke quote #25
  2. Let me explain a little: Certain things are bad so far as they go, such as pain, and no one, not even a lunatic, calls a tooth-ache good in itself; but a knife…

    Gilbert Keith ChestertonGilbert Keith Chesterton quote #53
  3. In its solitariness the spirit asks, What, in the way of value, is the attainment of life? And it can find no such value till it has merged its individual clai…

    Alfred North WhiteheadAlfred North Whitehead quote #1