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Albert Einstein, Person of the Century

by Traute Klein, AKA biogardener

Albert Einstein, not just a scientist. What can we learn from the man whom Time magazine voted the man of the 20th century?
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Time Magazine's Choice for the 20th Century

Oh, I know, he was not much of a husband. He was not much of a father. His priorities lay elsewhere. So what am I doing talking about him in the context of Natural Health? He was a great scientist, but that is not one of the concerns of this site. So why am I talking about Albert Einstein, Person of the Century. I have been blessed with the ability to see the good in everyone, even people who are regarded as total villains by today's society as well as by history. Some people are offended when I tell them about the good that Hitler has done. I am not a friend of his. My family suffered immensely during his rule, but I have to admit that he instituted some beneficial programs for the people he tyrannized, programs which have been imitated by society around the world ever since. So here we have a great scientist, Albert Einstein, the man who has been declared "Man of the Century" by Time magazine. A failure as a husband, a failure as a father, yet filled with lofty ambitions which he communicated in his speeches and letters. I want to share with you some of the quotations which will give us food for thought for a healthy outlook on life. Let them inspire you. I must confess that I have chosen these quotations because they come closest to my own feelings.

Man's Relationship to Man and the Universe

A human being is a part of a whole, called by us "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 to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.

Religion and Man



Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind. My religion consists of a humble admiration of the unlimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind. The highest principles for our aspirations and judgements are given to us in the Jewish-Christian religious tradition. It is a very high goal which, with our weak powers, we can reach only very inadequately, but which gives a sure foundation to our aspirations and valuations. If one were to take that goal out of out of its religious form and look merely at its purely human side, one might state it perhaps thus: free and responsible development of the individual, so that he may place his powers freely and gladly in the service of all mankind.... It is only to the individual that a soul is given. And the high destiny of the individual is to serve rather than to rule or to impose himself in any other way. When the solution is simple, God is answering. The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility.

Personal Philosophy of Life

Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts. Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding. Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.

Knowledge and Creativity



Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage - to move in the opposite direction. I want to know God's thoughts; the rest are details. Imagination is more important than knowledge. The only real valuable thing is intuition. Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen. The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education. The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. The hardest thing in the world to understand is income tax. Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character. Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts. (Sign hanging in Einstein's office at Princeton)

People and Life



Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one. A person starts to live when he can live outside himself. I never think of the future. It comes soon enough. Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing. Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new. The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking ... the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker. Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence. The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. His eyes are closed. Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion. You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat.

Math, Science, and Education

Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal. Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them. Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school.