Isn't it strange that I who have written only unpopular books should be such a popular fellow?
Interpretation
Popularity can be paradoxical; one may be well-liked despite creating work that is not widely accepted or acclaimed.
In this quote, Albert Einstein reflects on the irony of his popularity despite the fact that his literary contributions have not achieved mass appeal. It suggests that personal charm, character, and the connections one makes can lead to popularity that is independent of one's professional or creative success.
In practice
During a book club discussion about the values of authorship and popularity.
I cannot then believe in this concept of an anthropomorphic God who has the powers of interfering with these natural laws. As I said before, the most beautiful and most profound religious emotion that we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. And this mysticality is the power of all true science.
If I would follow your advice and Jesus could perceive it, he, as a Jewish teacher, surely would not approve of such behavior.
I want to know all Gods thoughts; all the rest are just details.
In the middle of adversity there is great opportunity.
I do not believe that civilization will be wiped out in a war fought with the atomic bomb. Perhaps two-thirds of the people of the earth will be killed.
To me the worst thing seems to be a school principally to work with methods of fear, force and artificial authority. Such treatment destroys the sound sentiments, the sincerity and the self-confidence of pupils and produces a subservient subject.
The philosophy of waiting is sustained by all the oracles of the universe.
When you're at war, you think about a better life; when you're at peace you think about a more comfortable one.
Exercise cannot secure us from that dissolution to which we are decreed; but while the soul and body continue united, it can make the association pleasing, and give probable hopes that they shall be disciplined by an easy separation...to die is the fate of man; but to die with lingering anguish is generally his folly.
In India, as elsewhere in our darkening world, religion is the poison in the blood. Where religion intervenes, mere innocence is no excuse. Yet we go on skating around this issue, speaking of religion in the fashionable language of 'respect.' What is there to respect in any of this, or in any of the crimes now being committed almost daily around the world in religion's dreaded name?
To philosophize with open eyes is to philosophize in the dark. Only the blind can look straight at the sun.
Where you come from is gone, where you thought you were going to never was there, and where you are is no good unless you can get away from it
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