The editors work hard to gather his scattered observations, opinions, thoughts and insights, yet I occasionally wondered if a nuance or two vanished in translation from German to English. Still, the narrative has its own dramatic arc: what starts as a fairly quiet journey suddenly erupts into Einstein’s “miracle year.” (If you’re curious, I’ve linked an infographic of his career here
For the most part the world’s best-known scientist never disappoints - until he dives head-first into the math. Even his famously “layman-friendly” prose can make you sweat if differential equations aren’t your thing.
Below are some passages that leapt off the page for me:
On God
“I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes His creatures or has a will of the kind that we experience in ourselves …”
On Life
“I am satisfied with the mystery of the eternity of life and with the awareness and glimpse of the marvelous structure of the existing world, together with the devoted striving to comprehend a portion—be it ever so tiny - of the Reason that manifests itself in nature.”
On Leaders
“In the case of political, and even religious, leaders it is often very doubtful whether they have done more good or harm …”
On the Individual & Society
“When we survey our lives and endeavors, we soon observe that almost the whole of our actions and desires is bound up with the existence of other human beings. We eat food others have produced, wear clothes others have made, live in houses others have built. The greater part of our knowledge and beliefs has been communicated to us by other people through the medium of language they created. The individual is what he is - not so much by virtue of his individuality as by being a member of the great human community.”
I’ve also dropped a short looping slide deck into the post for anyone who enjoys bite-sized wisdom. Dive in, ponder, and let me know which quote resonates most with you.
