Albert Einstein was asked by the mathematician Jacques Hadamard what role words played in his thinking. His reply said, in part: "The words of language, as th

Albert Einstein was asked by the mathematician Jacques Hadamard what role words played in his thinking. His reply said, in part: "The words of language, as they are written or spoken, do not seem to play any role in my mechanism of thought. The psychical entities which seem to serve as elements in thought are certain signs and more or less clear images which can be `voluntarily' reproduced and combined." It's from Hadamard's book "The Psychology of Invention in the Mathematical Field". The full letter is extremely interesting, containing several remarks on Einstein's self-perception of how he thought. Unfortunately, I don't immediately see it online, and I don't have immediate access to my hard copy of the book.