-- Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
"Mein Weltbild", published by Querido Verlag, Amsterdam, 1933
"The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the
fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true
science. He who knows it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel
amazement, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle. It was the
experience of mystery - even if mixed with fear - that engendered
religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot
penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most
radiant beauty, which are only accessible to our reason in their most
elementary forms - it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute
the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a
deeply religious man. 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."