“THE INTUITIVE MIND IS A SACRED GIFT AND THE RATIONAL MIND IS A FAITHFUL SERVANT. WE HAVE CREATED A SOCIETY THAT HONORS THE SERVANT AND HAS FORGOTTEN THE GIFT.”

Last update Nov. 30, 2023. History

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“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”

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

Commonly quoted on the internet, and also in recent books such as Planetary Survival Manual by Matthew Stein (2000), p. 51.
Stein's book is the earliest published source located with that precise version of the quote, but the quote can be found in earlier Usenet posts such as this one from 1995 http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.ascii/msg/d9f6ec3887950a0d?hl=en, and other published variants of the quote using the words "sacred gift" can be found earlier. A Google Books search http://books.google.com/advanced_book_search?q=%22sacred+gift%22+einstein with the date range restricted to 1900-1990 shows only a handful in the 1980s and 1970s, and several of them attribute it to The Metaphoric Mind by Bob Samples (1976), which also seems to be the earliest published variant. Samples does not provide an exact quote, but writes on p. 26: "Albert Einstein called the intuitive or metaphoric mind a sacred gift. He added that the rational mind was a faithful servant. It is paradoxical that in the context of modern life we have begun to worship the servant and defile the divine." It seems as if the last sentence about worshipping the servant is just Samples' own comment (though in later variants it became part of the supposed quote), while the earlier sentences only paraphrase something that Samples claims Einstein to have said. Einstein had many quotes about the value of intuition and imagination, but the specific word "gift" can be found in a comment remembered by János Plesch in the section Attributed in posthumous publications, "When I examine myself and my methods of thought I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge." So, Bob Samples might have been paraphrasing that comment. Likewise Einstein had a number of quotes about the intellect being secondary to intuition, but the language of the intellect "serving" can be found in a quote from the Out of My Later Years (1950) section, "And certainly we should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality. It cannot lead, it can only serve; and it is not fastidious in its choice of a leader."
Misattributed

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Gerald Ford photo

“It is only as the temporary representatives and servants of the people that we meet here, we bring no hereditary status or gift of infallibility, and none follows us from this place.”

Gerald Ford (1913–2006) American politician, 38th President of the United States (in office from 1974 to 1977)

State of the Union Address (12 January 1977)
1970s

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Glen Cook photo
Ursula K. Le Guin photo

“The faithful servant shall his guerdon have.”

Guido Guinizzelli (1230–1276) Italian poet

A buon servente guiderdon non pere.
Sonetto. (Poeti del Primo Secolo, Firenze, 1816, p. 104).
Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 239.

Aeschylus photo

“God’s best gift Is a mind free from folly”

Phillip Vellacott, The Oresteian Trilogy, Penguin 1973 ( Google Books https://books.google.com.au/books?id=tuRiOESBVjkC)
Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon

François de La Rochefoucauld photo

“The stamp of great minds is to suggest much in few words; by contrast, little minds have the gift of talking a great deal and saying nothing.”

Comme c’est le caractère des grands esprits de faire entendre en peu de paroles beaucoup de choses, les petits esprits au contraire ont le don de beaucoup parler, et de ne rien dire.
Maxim 142.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)

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