“Measured objectively, what a man can wrest from Truth by passionate striving is utterly infinitesimal. But the striving frees us from the bonds of the self and makes us comrades of those who are the best and the greatest.”

—  Albert Einstein

A note Einstein wrote underneath an etching of himself (made by Hermann Struck) which he sent to a friend, Dr. Hans Mühsam. According to the book, "the date is 1920 or perhaps earlier", p. 24
Attributed in posthumous publications, Albert Einstein: The Human Side (1979)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 14, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Measured objectively, what a man can wrest from Truth by passionate striving is utterly infinitesimal. But the striving…" by Albert Einstein?
Albert Einstein photo
Albert Einstein 702
German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativi… 1879–1955

Related quotes

Winston S. Churchill photo

“What is the use of living, if it be not to strive for noble causes and to make this muddled world a better place for those who will live in it after we are gone?”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech at Kinnaird Hall, Dundee, Scotland ("Unemployment"), October 10, 1908, in Liberalism and the Social Problem (1909), Churchill, Echo Library (2007), p. 87
Early career years (1898–1929)
Context: What is the use of living, if it be not to strive for noble causes and to make this muddled world a better place for those who will live in it after we are gone? How else can we put ourselves in harmonious relation with the great verities and consolations of the infinite and the eternal? And I avow my faith that we are marching towards better days. Humanity will not be cast down. We are going on swinging bravely forward along the grand high road and already behind the distant mountains is the promise of the sun.

Friedrich Nietzsche photo

“Admiration for a quality or an art can be so strong that it deters us from striving to possess it.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
Hermann Friedrich Kohlbrügge photo

“Every thing that is around us strives to draw us away from the true faith.”

Hermann Friedrich Kohlbrügge (1803–1874) Dutch minister

Source: Sermons on the First Epistle of Peter (1855), p. 9

Gloria Steinem photo

“Artists strive to free this true and spontaneous self in their work. Creativity, meditation are ways of freeing an inner voice”

Gloria Steinem (1934) American feminist and journalist

Revolution From Within

Albert Einstein photo

“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.”

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

"My Credo", a speech to the German League of Human Rights, Berlin (Autumn 1932), as published in Einstein: A Life in Science (1994) by Michael White and John Gribbin, p. 262.
1930s

Max Stirner photo

“If man puts his honor first in relying upon himself, knowing himself and applying himself, this in self-reliance, self-assertion, and freedom, he then strives to rid himself of the ignorance which makes a strange impenetrable object a barrier and a hindrance to his self-knowledge.”

Max Stirner book The False Principle of our Education

Source: The False Principle of our Education (1842), p. 23

Barack Obama photo

“We can acknowledge that oppression will always be with us, and still strive for justice.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2009, Nobel Prize acceptance speech (December 2009)
Context: We can acknowledge that oppression will always be with us, and still strive for justice. We can admit the intractability of deprivation, and still strive for dignity. Clear-eyed, we can understand that there will be war, and still strive for peace. We can do that — for that is the story of human progress; that's the hope of all the world; and at this moment of challenge, that must be our work here on Earth.

Henry Clay Trumbull photo

“There are ever two ways of striving to fill one's place in the world: one is by seeking to prove one's self useful; the other, by striving to render one's self useless. The first way is the commoner and the more attractive; the second is the rarer and more noble.”

Henry Clay Trumbull (1830–1903) Union Army chaplain

Quoted by by Richard Foster in Renovare' perspective, Vol. 7, No.2, April, 1997.

Ovid photo

“We are ever striving after what is forbidden, and coveting what is denied us.”
Nitimur in vetitum semper, cupimusque negata.

Ovid book Amores

Variant translation: We hunt for things unlawful with swift feet, / As if forbidden joys were only sweet.
Book III; iv, 17
Amores (Love Affairs)

Mwanandeke Kindembo photo

“Only continuous learning can free us from all the madness of this world—From the Flat Earth Theory to those who used to believe that the Earth was the centre of the universe.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Related topics