“I don't try to imagine a personal God; it suffices to stand in awe at the structure of the world, insofar as it allows our inadequate senses to appreciate it.”

— Albert Einstein

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Albert Einstein 702

German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativi… 1879–1955

Donald Miller book Blue Like Jazz: nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality

Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)

“In our analysis of complex systems (like the brain and language) we must avoid the trap of trying to find master keys. Because of the mechanisms by which complex systems structure themselves, single principles provide inadequate descriptions. We should rather be sensitive to complex and self-organizing interactions and appreciate the play of patterns that perpetually transforms the system itself as well as the environment in which it operates.”

Paul Cilliers (1956–2011) South African philosopher

Source: Complexity and Postmodernism (1998), p. 107

“We don't set out to deliberately scare with our creatures, we try to make them as awe-inspiring as possible.”

Ray Harryhausen (1920–2013) American animator

Harryhausen on Horror

“The point of meditation is not merely to be an honest or good person in the conventional sense, trying only to maintain our security. We must begin to become compassionate and wise in the fundamental sense, open and relating to the world as it is.”

Chögyam Trungpa book Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism

Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism

“"Sometimes it comes down to a choice. Between saving one person and saving the whole world. I've seen it happen, and I'm selfish enough to want the person who loves me to choose me. But Nephilim will always choose the world. I look at Alec and I feel like Lucifer in Paradise Lost. "Abashed the Devil stood, And felt how awful goodness is." He meant it in the classic sense. 'Awful' as in inspiring awe. And awe is well and good, but it's poison to love. Love has to be between equals."”

Cassandra Clare The Mortal Instruments

Magnus Bane, to Luke Garroway, about Alec Lightwood, pg. 428
The Mortal Instruments, City of Heavenly Fire (2014)

“The structures of society and culture are fighting turned to stone; they are what comes into existence so long and insofar as we interrupt our practical and ideological struggles over the organization of life in society. When the fighting escalates again, the structures dissolve into the collective action and imagination from which they arose. When we fashion structures design to invite their own reconstruction, we make them into both superior instruments of our power and more faithful reflections of our humanity.”

Roberto Mangabeira Unger book The Self Awakened: Pragmatism Unbound

Source: The Self Awakened: Pragmatism Unbound (2007), p. 63

“The 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 insufficiency of the human mind to understand deeply the harmony of the Universe which we try to formulate as "laws of nature."”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

It is this consciousness and humility I miss in the Free-thinker mentality.
Letter to Beatrice F. in response to a question about whether he was a "free thinker" (17 December 1952), p. 121
Attributed in posthumous publications, Einstein and Religion (1999)

“I don't stand for black man's side, I don't stand for white man's side, I stand for God's side.”

Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician

“I believe that appreciation is a holy thing, that when we look for what's best in the person we happen to be with at the moment, we're doing what God does; so in appreciating our neighbor, we're participating in something truly sacred.”

Fred Rogers (1928–2003) American television personality

Commencement Address at Middlebury College May, 2001 http://web.archive.org/web/20030906163501/http://www.middlebury.edu/offices/pubaff/general_info/addresses/Fred_Rogers_2001.htm

“Who's the real you? The person who did something awful, or the one who's horrified by the awful thing you did? Is one part of you allowed to forgive the other?”

Rebecca Stead (1968) American children's writer

Source: Goodbye Stranger

“I don't try to imagine a personal God; it suffices to stand in awe at the structure of the world, insofar as it allows our inadequate senses to appreciate it.”

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Albert Einstein 702

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