Albert Einstein on God, Superhuman and Human Purpose

Selected quotes from Albert Einstein (with my comments in brackets):

A human being is part of a whole, called by us the Universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

(Where does this freedom come from?  Our thoughts?)

~

The human mind is not capable of grasping the Universe. We are like a little child entering a huge library. The walls are covered to the ceilings with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written these books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. But the child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books - a mysterious order which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects.

(...ah, but what a great attempt at grasping we attempt.)

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One should guard against preaching to young people success in the customary form as the main aim in life. The most important motive for work in school and in life is pleasure in work, pleasure in its result, and the knowledge of the value of the result to the community.

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The point is to develop the childlike inclination for play and the childlike desire for recognition and to guide the child over to important fields for society. Such a school demands from the teacher that he be a kind of artist in his province.

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It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer.

(The solution to the problems within the education system?  Life is beautiful - that's what we should teach!)

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Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.

(oooh, I wonder what that age is - am I too old too read?)

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Let us not forget that knowledge and skills alone cannot lead humanity to a happy and dignified life. ... I claim credit for nothing. Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insects as well as for the stars, Human beings, vegetables or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper.

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I want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts; the rest are details.

(...oh-oh, he seems contradictory here, or at least opinionated.)

I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it.

(...those darn ethics.)

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I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God Who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind.

(Me thinks those doings are mankind's responsibility while we occupy in this space.)

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Strange is our situation here upon earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to a divine purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: That we are here for the sake of others...for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy. Many times a day, I realize how much my outer and inner life is built upon the labors of people, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received.

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The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It's the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and science. Whoever does not know it can no longer wander, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed.

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I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.

(...ah, but you cannot see it (the imagination), can you?)

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Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.

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If my theory of relativity is proven successful, Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare that I am a citizen of the world. Should my theory prove untrue, France will say that I am a German and Germany will declare that I am a Jew.

(Well, being neither, I will just call you brilliant, and a citizen of the universe!)

Albert Einstein

Comments

[oakley sunglasses]

::--)The snog-hungry festival-goers arrived at the appointed hour of 3pm and divided themselves according to preference with the help of makeshift cardboard signs which read: guy-girl, guy-guy, girl-girl and "does not matter".--::)

[oakley sunglasses]

^*^Good at planning, good at time management.//This works because reach is so important to marketers’ success.

97*-*

[ClubPenguinCheats]

That we are here for the sake of others...for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy.