e idea of a personal God is quite alien to me and seems even naive. However, I am also not a "Freethinker" in the usual sense of the word because I find that this is in the main an attitude nourished exclusively by an opposition against naive superstition. My feeling is insofar religious as I am imbued with the consciousness of the insuffiency of the human mind to understand deeply the harmony of the Universe which we try to formulate as "laws of nature." It is this consciousness and humility I miss in the Freethinker mentality. Sincerely yours, Albert Einstein.

What I seek to accomplish is simply to serve with my feeble capacity truth and justice, at the risk of pleasing no one.

I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves. This ethical basis I call the ideal of the pigsty.

The gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.

The true value of a human being can be found in the degree to which he has attained liberation from the self.

In order to be an immaculate member of a flock of sheep, one must above all be a sheep oneself.

I am an adherent of the ideal of democracy, although I well know the weaknesses of the democratic form of government. Social equality and economic protection of the individual appeared to me always as the important communal aims of the state. Although I am a typical loner in daily life, my consciousness of belonging to the invisible community of those who strive for truth, beauty, and justice has preserved me from feeling isolated.