“The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.”
-Albert Einstein
Across a nation an entire population grapples with their own understanding of what even Einstein found baffling: April 15th.
On Taxes
Reply
On Knowledge and Wisdom
"Perfection of means and confusion of ends seem to characterize our age."
-Albert Einstein
Another way of saying we are much more clever than wise.
On a Rational Understanding of God
"Science not only purifies the religious impulse of the dross of its anthropomorphism but also contributes to a religious spiritualization of our understanding of life.
The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge."
-Albert Einstein
Our concept and understanding of God necessarily progresses with our own human evolution and our ability to rise above our our base instincts from which we have emerged from the mists of primordial emergence on this earth.
Fear reflects are base origins as creatures on this earth fighting for survival. We strive for God insofar as we seek a rational understanding of the universe and our place within it.
On Using Religion as a Weapon
“While religion prescribes brotherly love in the relations among the individuals and groups, the actual spectacle more resembles a battlefield than an orchestra.”
-Albert Einstein
The spectacle is on full display in political rallies where the speaker is thought to be “full of the holy spirit” and yet people come away full of hate and suspicion. It is practiced in pulpits that preach that only one particular political ideology is sanctioned by God and all others are abhorrent. It turns the highest aspirations of the truly faithful and thoughtful into a farce, rejecting any real notion of God and instead pandering to fear and division.
It is religion as the oppressor, nothing more than a weapon.
On the Value of Art and the True Artist
“Only to a tiny minority is it given to fascinate their generation by subtle humour and grace and to hold the mirror up to it by the impersonal agency of art. To-day I salute with sincere emotion the supreme master of this method, who has delighted — and educated — us all.”
-Albert Einstein
The artist’s laser-beam, with its wit and easy grace yet also with unrelenting intensity, that reveals to us who we really are and what it means to be human, is a gift beyond accounting, .
From the few, much is given to the many.
On the Lack of Independent Thinkers in the World
“There are few enough people with sufficient independence to see the weaknesses and follies of their contemporaries and remain themselves untouched by them.”
-Albert Einstein
Too few are of independent and courageous enough mind to see the truth of the world, as humans inhabit it, and not instead get drawn into the seeming propensity for foolishness.
On the Solace of Solitude
“I am truly a ‘lone traveler’ and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties, I have never lost a sense of distance and a need for solitude…”
-Albert Einstein
No man is an island, all are connected and depend on the society of their fellows.
There are those who nonetheless must remain at a distance. The artist, the traveler, the thinker, the loner. Those who find in solace in solitude.
On the Importance of the “Elevator Speech”
“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”
-Albert Einstein
Any well understood idea, fully considered plan, or sound theory must be summarized in less than a minute. Otherwise you’re wasting your own time and everyone else’s.
Simplicity is the clarifying beam of understanding.
On the Value of Success, and the Success of Value
“Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.”
What good is a person’s presumed success if it offers nothing of value to anyone else?
On the Illusion of Certainty
“As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.”
-Albert Einstein
To the degree that you are certain of reality is the degree to which you do not know what is real. And vice-versa.