“When a person can’t find a deep sense of meaning, they distract themselves with pleasure.”
“Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of truth.”
Letter to Jost Winteler (1901), quoted in The Private Lives of Albert Einstein by Roger Highfield and Paul Carter (1993), p. 79 http://books.google.com/books?id=zY7FE9ZyDO0C&lpg=PP1&pg=PA79#v=onepage&q&f=false. Einstein had been annoyed that Paul Drude, editor of Annalen der Physik, had dismissed out of hand some criticisms Einstein made of Drude's electron theory of metals.
1900s
Variant: A foolish faith in authority is the worst enemy of truth.
"Me and My House" in Harper's (November 1955); republished in Notes of a Native Son (1955)
Source: The Fire Next Time
"In Search of a Majority: An Address" (Feb 1960); reprinted in Baldwin, "Nobody Knows My Name: More Notes of a Native Son" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobody_Knows_My_Name (1961)
“Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
"As Much Truth As One Can Bear" in The New York Times Book Review (14 January 1962); republished in The Cross of Redemption: Uncollected Writings (2011), edited by Randall Kenan<!-- , also quoted in Wisdom for the Soul : Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing (2006) by Larry Chang, p. 114 -->
Context: Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced. … Most of us are about as eager to change as we were to be born, and go through our changes in a similar state of shock.
“The place in which I'll fit will not exist until I make it.”
“The only thing greater than the power of the mind is the courage of the heart”
“I would rather die standing up to live life on my knees.”
“What is to give light must endure burning.”
“Love starts when we push aside our ego and make room for someone else.”
“We are each of us angels with only one wing, and we can only fly by embracing one another.”
“Being on the edge isn’t as safe, but the view is better.”
“Evil is unspectacular and always human, and shares our bed and eats at our own table.”
“I walk slowly, but I never walk backward.”
Likely spurious quote, UNVERIFIED ATTRIBUTE - Quoted in The Lexington Observer & Reporter (16 June 1864)
1860s
Variant: I am a slow walker, but I never walk back.
