The World As I See It

by Albert Einstein

In human freedom in the philosophical sense I am definitely a disbeliever. Everybody acts not only under external compulsion but also in accordance with inner necessity.

Environmental influences dictates a subset of necessary actions in order to survive or prosper. And when such elements do not effect, we don't just freely choose whatever we want to do, but act out of the inner desires, impulses, instincts, dictated by the "mighty ruler" within, spoken of by Nietzsche, or the Self, by Jung.

“a man can do as he will, but not will as he will,”

I am quite aware that it is necessary for the success of any complex undertaking that one man should do the thinking and directing and in general bear the responsibility. But the led must not be compelled, they must be able to choose their leader.

For force always attracts men of low morality, and I believe it to be an invariable rule that tyrants of genius are succeeded by scoundrels.

That a man can take pleasure in marching in formation to the strains of a band is enough to make me despise him. He has only been given his big brain by mistake; a backbone was all he needed.

Let every man judge according to his own standards, by what he has himself read, not by what others tell him.

The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained to liberation from the self.

The individual, if left alone from birth, would remain primitive and beast-like in his thoughts and feelings to a degree that we can hardly conceive. The individual is what he is and has the significance that he has not so much in virtue of his individuality, but rather as a member of a great human society, which directs his material and spiritual existence from the cradle to the grave.

The democratic, parliamentarian regime, which is based on such independence, has in many places been shaken, dictatorships have sprung up and are tolerated, because men’s sense of the dignity and the rights of the individual is no longer strong enough.

(The principal art of the teacher is to awaken the joy in creation and knowledge.)

Everything that the human race has done and thought is concerned with the satisfaction of felt needs and the assuagement of pain.

Feeling and desire are the motive forces behind all human endeavour and human creation, in however exalted a guise the latter may present itself to us.

Those whose acquaintance with scientific research is derived chiefly from its practical results easily develop a completely false notion of the mentality of the men who, surrounded by a sceptical world, have shown the way to those like-minded with themselves, scattered through the earth and the centuries. Only one who has devoted his life to similar ends can have a vivid realization of what has inspired these men and given them the strength to remain true to their purpose in spite of countless failures. It is cosmic religious feeling that gives a man strength of this sort.

In apparent contradiction to this stands the fact that the activities of the State are comparatively restricted as compared with Europe.

The more social attitude of the individual, which I mentioned just now, makes this possible here.

The public-house is a place which gives people a chance to exchange views and ideas on public affairs.