Some Perspective from Einstein

This quotation is attributed to Einstein’s letter of 1950, as quoted in The New York Times (29 March 1972) and The New York Post (28 November 1972). However, The New Quotable Einstein by Alice Calaprice (Princeton University Press, 2005: ISBN 0691120749), p. 206, has a presumably more accurate version of this letter, which she dates to February 12, 1950 and describes as "a letter to a distraught father who had lost his young son and had asked Einstein for some comforting words:

“A human being is a part of the whole, called by us  ‘Universe,’ a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest — a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. The striving to free oneself from this delusion is the one issue of true religion. Not to nourish it but to try to overcome it is the way to reach the attainable measure of peace of mind." The other quote is apparently the melding of two Einstein quotes.

The Mundane as Motive

“One of the strongest motives that leads men to art and science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness. Such men make the cosmos and its construction the pivot of their emotional life, in order to find the peace and security which they cannot find in the narrow whirlpool of personal experience.”

— Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein in the Reign of Witches

When Albert Einstein took a stand against Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s anticommunist witch hunt in 1953, he advised that American intellectuals should refuse to testify before McCarthy’s committee on the grounds that they were defending the free expression principles of the First Amendment to the Bill of Rights.

Russell and Einstein

America’s newspapers, the beneficiaries of the First Amendment, promptly and stridently denounced him. Anti-Einstein screeds appeared on the editorial pages of the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, the Philadelphia Inquirer and others.

Einstein had sparked the firestorm by making public a reply he had given to a Brooklyn schoolteacher who had refused to cooperate with McCarthy’s hysterical inquisition into supposed “communist influence in high schools.”

“The problem with which the intellectuals of this country are confronted is very serious,” Einstein told him. “The reactionary politicians have managed to instill suspicion of all intellectual efforts into the public by dangling before their eyes a danger from without . . . They are now proceeding to suppress the freedom of teaching and to deprive of their positions all those who do not prove submissive…

“What ought the minority of intellectuals to do against this evil? I can only see the revolutionary way of non-co-operation, in Gandhi’s sense... based on the assertion that it is shameful for a blameless citizen to submit to such an inquisition…

“If enough people are ready to take this grave step they will be successful. If not, then the intellectuals of this country deserve nothing better than the slavery which is intended for them.”

Seeing all the vitriol hurled against the venerable, kindly Einstein, the British philosopher Bertrand Russell penned a wry reply to the New York Times.
“You seem to think one should always obey the law, however bad,” the philosopher wrote. “I am compelled to suppose that you condemn George Washington and hold that your country ought to return to allegiance to Her Gracious Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II. As a loyal Briton, I of course applaud this view, but I fear it may not win much support in your country.”

Source: “Einstein: His Life and Universe” by Walter Isaacson

The Pride of Mrs. Einstein

Albert and Elsa Einstein

Einstein with Hubble at Mount Wilson

Although Albert Einstein’s second wife, Elsa, didn’t understand what he did, she was immensely proud of him for doing it. One sunny day in January 1931, while Einstein played with the controls of the 100-inch reflector telescope at the Mount Wilson Observatory near Pasadena, someone explained to Elsa that astronomer Edwin Hubble had used this equipment to discover the size and shape of the universe. She replied, “Well, my husband does that on the back of an old envelope.”

Source: “Einstein: His Life and Universe” by Walter Isaacson

Life Under a Very Small Star

One day in 1922, instead of the promised lecture, Albert Einstein treated Geneva University students to a spirited violin recital.

The scientific sage was visiting from Germany, the country where he was still living despite a rising tide of violence, fascism and anti-Semitism. That evening at dinner, the wife of an Oxford professor asked Einstein how he could remain cheerful with so much depravity in the world.

He replied, “We must remember that this is a very small star, and probably some of the larger and more important stars may be very virtuous and happy.”

Intellectual and emotional detachment has its advantages.

Source: “Einstein: His Life and Universe” by Walter Isaacson

Caviar as Brain Food

In 1902, Albert Einstein and a couple of young intellectual friends dubbed themselves the “Olympia Academy,” lampooning the stuffiness of academia.

They named Einstein the president, and created a certificate for him that included his bust in profile beneath an impressive string of sausages.

After all, the nature of the universe was important, but so were sausages.

“Generally their dinners were frugal repasts of sausage, Gruyère cheese, fruit and tea. But for Einstein’s birthday, (Maurice) Solovine and (Conrad) Habicht decided to surprise him by putting three plates of caviar on the table.

“Einstein was engrossed in analyzing Galileo’s principle of inertia, and as he talked he took mouthful after mouthful of his caviar without seeming to notice. Habicht and Solovine exchanged furtive glances.

“’Do you realize what you’ve been eating?’ Solovine finally asked.

“’For goodness’ sake,’ Einstein exclaimed. ‘So that was the famous caviar!’ He paused for a moment, then added, ‘Well, if you offer gourmet food to peasants like me, you know they won’t appreciate it.’”

Source: “Einstein: His Life and Universe” by Walter Isaacson