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Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.

This 1954 quote comes from Einstein’s contribution to a collection of essays given to the rabbi Leo Baeck for his 80th birthday. Leo Baeck was a prominent leader in the Jewish community of Hitler’s Germany.

Why do people speak of great men in terms of nationality? Great Germans, great Englishmen? Goethe always protested against being called a German poet. Great men are simply men and are not to be considered from the point of view of nationality, nor should the environment in which they were brought up be taken into account.

The New Yale Book of Quotations

Why is it that nobody understands me, yet everybody likes me?

Speaking to the New York Times in 1944, this question sums up Einstein’s lifelong bewilderment with his public perception.

Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.

So spoke Einstein in 1954 at the age of 75. Though he was still very busy, his work by that time had moved away from science and toward dispense that hard-earned wisdom to friends, colleagues, writers, government officials, etc.

With fame I become more and more stupid, which of course is a very common phenomenon.

This 1919 quote reflects the classic Einstein tendencies to both discount his own intelligence and prefer to be left alone. He thought that people’s overestimation of his intellect lead to an undeserved fame, with people constantly demanding his time and hanging on his every word. He always preferred to be left in solitude to work.
Without deep reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people.
Women marry men hoping they will change. Men marry women hoping they will not. So each is inevitably disappointed.
Yes, we have to divide up our time like that, between our politics and our equations. But to me our equations are far more important, for politics are only a matter of present concern. A mathematical equation stands forever.
Yes, we must divide up our time like that, between our politics and our equations.

You are surprised, aren’t you, at the contrast between my fame throughout the world… and the isolation and quiet in which I live here. I wished for this isolation all my life, and now I have finally achieved it here in Princeton.

This quote comes from Philipp Frank’s book, Einstein, His Life and Times . Einstein landed a job at Princeton University in 1933, where he stayed until his death in 1955. Once Hitler took control of Germany in 1933, Einstein bounced around Europe for several months before settling in Princeton, New Jersey. He never returned to Germany.

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