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Einstein’s position was that “everybody acts not only under external compulsion but also in accordance with inner necessity.”
What particularly struck him about America was the American patronage of science.
Einstein, therefore, is great in the public eye partly because he has made revolutionary discoveries which cannot be translated into the common tongue. We stand in proper awe of a man whose thoughts move on heights far beyond our range, whose achievements can be measured only by the few who are able to follow his reasoning and challenge his conclusions.
the Einstein we can all understand is no less great than the Einstein we take on trust.
A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labours of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving.
plain living is good for everybody, physically and mentally.
The ideals which have lighted me on my way and time after time given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Truth, Goodness, and Beauty.
One is sharply conscious, yet without regret, of the limits to the possibility of mutual understanding and sympathy with one’s fellow-creatures.
The really valuable thing in the pageant of human life seems to me not the State but the creative, sentient individual, the personality;
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.
Organization has to some extent taken the place of the great man, particularly in the technical sphere, but also to a very perceptible extent in the scientific.
Specialization in every sphere of intellectual work is producing an ever-widening gulf between the intellectual worker and the non-specialist, which makes it more difficult for the life of the nation to be fertilized and enriched by the achievements of art and science.
The only rational way of educating is to be an example—of what to avoid, if one can’t be the other sort.
Bear in mind that the wonderful things you learn in your schools are the work of many generations, produced by enthusiastic effort and infinite labour in every country of the world. All this is put into your hands as your inheritance in order that you may receive it, honour it, add to it, and one day faithfully hand it on to your children. Thus do we mortals achieve immortality in the permanent things which we create in common.
Feeling and desire are the motive forces behind all human endeavour and human creation,
Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear and punishment and hope of reward after death.
His religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection.
But science, if it is to flourish, must have no practical end in view.
Interruption of intellectual training in the formative period of youth is very apt to leave a gap which can hardly be filled later.
Labour is expensive, because the country is sparsely inhabited in comparison with its natural resources. The high price of labour was the stimulus which evoked the marvellous development of technical devices and methods of work.
The smile on the faces of the people in photographs is symbolical of one of the American’s greatest assets.
The American lives for ambition, the future, more than the European. Life for him is always becoming, never being.
greatest obstacle to international order is that monstrously exaggerated spirit of nationalism
In these great matters success is not a matter of cleverness, still less of cunning, but of honesty and confidence.
It is clear also that “serving God” was equated with “serving the living.” The best of the Jewish people, especially the Prophets and Jesus, contended tirelessly for this.
no “faith” but the sanctification of life in a supra-personal sense is demanded of the Jew.
Palestine is not primarily a place of refuge for the Jews of Eastern Europe, but the embodiment of the re-awakening corporate spirit of the whole Jewish nation.
Remember that difficulties and obstacles are a valuable source of health and strength to any society.
In the service of life sacrifice becomes grace.
We must have our own students’ societies and adopt an attitude of courteous but consistent reserve to the Gentiles. And let us live after our own fashion there and not ape duelling and drinking customs which are foreign to our nature.
The Jews are a community bound together by ties of blood and tradition, and not of religion only: the attitude of the rest of the world towards them is sufficient proof of this.
If we did not have to live among intolerant, narrow-minded, and violent people, I should be the first to throw over all nationalism in favour of universal humanity.
