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Ideas and Opinions

Book by Albert Einstein · 50 quotes · Science, Men, Individual

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“The desire for guidance, love, and support prompts men to form the social or moral conception of God. This is the God of Providence, who protects, disposes, rewards, and punishes; the God who, according to the limits of the believer's outlook, loves and cherishes the life of the tribe or of the human race, or even of life itself; the comforter in sorrow and unsatisfied longing; he who preserves the souls of the dead. This is the social or moral conception of God.”

MenHumansSoulFormDesireSocialRaceMoralSupportSorrowProtectLimitsLongingRewardsBelieverPreservesHuman RaceGuidanceCherishConceptionProvidenceTribesOutlookPromptsUnsatisfiedComforter
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“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.”

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“This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of herd life, the military system, which I abhor... This plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed. Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them!”

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“A man's ethical behaviour should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.”

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“The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man's image; so that there can be no church whose central teachings are based on it. Hence it is precisely among the heretics of every age that we find men who were filled with this highest kind of religious feeling and were in many cases regarded by their contemporaries as atheists, sometimes also as saints. Looked at in this light, men like Democritus, Francis of Assisi, and Spinoza are closely akin to one another.”

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“Everything that the human race has done and thought is concerned with the satisfaction of deeply felt needs and the assuagement of pain. One has to keep this constantly in mind if one wishes to understand spiritual movements and their development. Feeling and longing are the motive force behind all human endeavor and human creation, in however exalted a guise the latter may present themselves to us.”

IfsNeedsMindHumansMayDonePhilosophyFeelingsPainSpiritualForceWishFeltRaceBehindsMovementCreationDevelopmentConcernedLongingSatisfactionHuman RaceMotiveLatterEndeavorExaltedGuise
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“Teaching should be such that what is offered is perceived as a valuable gift and not as a hard duty.”

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“The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with this.”

WarCountryGovernmentLawPoliticsSecretLibertyLandDangerousCrimeDrugIncreaseConnectedLibertarianPassingPassingsDestructivePotWeedMarijuanaLibertarianismFreedom And LibertyIntriguingProhibitionFreedom LibertyPrestigeLimited GovernmentCannabisLimiting GovernmentLibertarian PartyLimited FreedomHempMedical MarijuanaSmoking WeedLimiting FreedomSmoke WeedIllegal DrugsDrug ProhibitionGovernment And PoliticsGovernment PoliticsDrug LawsSmokin WeedGreat WeedCool MarijuanaMarijuana ProhibitionPassing Laws
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“Intelligence makes clear to us the interrelationship of means and ends. But mere thinking cannot give us a sense of the ultimate and fundamental ends. To make clear these fundamental ends and valuations and to set them fast in the emotional life of the individual, seems to me precisely the most important function which religion has to form in the social life of man.”

ThinkingMenGivingMeanImportantEndsSeemsFormSpiritualityIndividualSocialInterestingClearEmotionalPerceptionUltimateFunctionFundamentalsMereScience And ReligionSocial LifeValuationEmotional LifeSpiritual Intelligence
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“I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the kind that we experience in ourselves. Neither can I nor would I want to conceive of an individual that survives his physical death; let feeble souls, from fear or absurd egoism, cherish such thoughts. I am satisfied with the mystery of the eternity of life and with the awareness and a glimpse of the marvelous structure of the existing world, together with the devoted striving to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the Reason that manifests itself in nature.”

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“While it is true that science, to the extent of its grasp of causative connections, may reach important conclusions as to the compatibility and incompatibility of goals and evaluations, the independent and fundamental definitions regarding goals and values remain beyond science's reach.”

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“For the moral attitudes of a people that is supported by religion need always aim at preserving and promoting the sanity and vitality of the community and its individuals, since otherwise this community is bound to perish. A people that were to honour falsehood, defamation, fraud, and murder would be unable, indeed, to subsist for very long.”

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“It must be conceded that a theory has an important advantage if its basic concepts and fundamental hypotheses are 'close to experience,' and greater confidence in such a theory is certainly justified. There is less danger of going completely astray, particularly since it takes so much less time and effort to disprove such theories by experience. Yet more and more, as the depth of our knowledge increases, we must give up this advantage in our quest for logical simplicity in the foundations of physical theory.”

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“The theoretical idea ... does not arise apart from and independent of experience; nor can it be derived from experience by a purely logical procedure. It is produced by a creative act. Once a theoretical idea has been acquired, one does well to hold fast to it until it leads to an untenable conclusion.”

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“I believe, indeed, that overemphasis on the purely intellectual attitude, often directed solely to the practical and factual, in our education, has led directly to the impairment of ethical values. I am not thinking so much of the dangers with which technical progress has directly confronted mankind, as of the stifling of mutual human considerations by a 'matter-of-fact' habit of thought which has come to lie like a killing frost upon human relations. Without 'ethical culture' there is no salvation for humanity.”

ThinkingBelieveHumansMatterFactsLyingValuesHumanityCultureI BelieveAttitudeProgressMankindDangerHabitWords Of WisdomIntellectualRelationSalvationKillingEducationalPracticalsConsiderationMutualEthicalMatter Of FactHuman RelationsFrostFactualStiflingEthical Values
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“An autocratic system of coercion, in my opinion, soon degenerates. 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. For this reason I have always been passionately opposed to systems such as we see in Italy and Russia to-day.”

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