Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the difficulty individuals face in forming and expressing opinions that diverge from societal norms and prejudices.
Albert Einstein reflects on the challenge of critical thinking and independent thought in the context of societal influences. He suggests that many individuals find it hard to hold differing opinions due to the prejudices prevalent in their social environment, and that an even greater number may struggle to form any opinions that diverge from these norms. This observation emphasizes the importance of fostering an open mind and the courage it takes to challenge the collective thinking of society.
In practice
In a discussion about social justice, one might use this quote to emphasize the need for critical thinking.
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.
There are skeptics who do not come to their view because they have a source of income from carbon polluters.
A globalized world is by now a familiar fact of life. Building walls or moats may sound appealing, but the future belongs to those who tend to their people and then boldly engage the rest of the world, near and far.
We lose ourselves in what we read, only to return to ourselves, transformed and part of a more expansive world.
The heaviest penalty for deciding to engage in politics is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself.
Attainment is followed by neglect, possession by disgust, and the malicious remark of the Greek epigrammatist on marriage may be applied to many another course of life, that its two days of happiness are the first and the last
In a world torn by every kind of fundamentalism - religious, ethnic, nationalist and tribal - we must grant first place to economic fundamentalism, with its religious conviction that the market, left to its own devices, is capable of resolving all our problems. This faith has its own ayatollahs. Its church is neo-liberalism; its creed is profit; its prayers are for monopolies.
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