I read Einstein's biography. Here are 15 quotes that reveal his philosophy on life.

post by dmabery · 2022-03-15T18:14:22.201Z · LW · GW · 5 comments

Contents

  On Education
  On Curiosity
  On Individuality and Politics
  On Personal Matters
None
5 comments

On Education

Near the end of his life, the New York State Education Department asked Einstein what they should teach in school. He replied,

In teaching history, there should be an extensive discussion of personalities who benefited mankind through independence of character and judgment.

The value of a college education is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think.

On Curiosity

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

A new idea comes suddenly and in a rather intuitive way. But, intuition is nothing but the outcomes of earlier intellectual experience.

Nature hides her secret because of her essential loftiness, but not by means of ruse.

All knowledge of reality starts from experience and ends in it.

I have no special talents, I am only passionately curious.

Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when one contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality

Nature is the realization of the simplest conceivable mathematical ideas.

On Individuality and Politics

It is important to foster individuality, for only the individual can produce the new ideas.

When a person can take pleasure in marching in step to a piece of music it is enough to make me despise him. He has been given his big brain only by mistake.

A foolish faith in authority is the worst enemy of truth.

How an intelligent man can subscribe to a party I find a complete mystery.

On Personal Matters

To dwell on things that depress or anger us does not help in overcoming them. One must knock them down alone.

The monotony of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind.

5 comments

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comment by Cédric · 2022-03-17T03:46:01.410Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

You're getting downvoted without feedback so I'll try to provide some.

The post does not provide any particular insight, it's a disparate collection of quotes. The same and more can be gotten by googling 'Einstein quotes'. Some ideas about how you can make the post more insightful:

  • Connect the quotes to uncover Einstein's worldview and approach to his work and life
  • Give your personal thoughts about the quotes, its caveats and nuance
  • Explain what Einstein means a little more as some quotes don't really mean much without context/explanation

Also, Einstein's brilliance was in his physics, none of those quotes really touch on that. In fact, his worldview outside of physics is not that sophisticated, especially relative to his work in physics which is as sophisticated as it gets. Some of those quotes are also quite obviously wrong e.g. the one about having no special talents is wrong even if it wasn't self-contradictory. Perhaps focusing on his work and how he did it would provide more value as that's what he was best at.

Replies from: rsaarelm
comment by rsaarelm · 2022-03-17T07:47:42.141Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

OP might be some sort of content farming sockpuppet. No activity other than this post, and this was posted within a minute of a (now deleted) similarly vacuous post from a different account with no prior site activity as well.

Replies from: Cédric
comment by Cédric · 2022-03-17T10:28:10.884Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

What would be the purpose of doing such a thing? There is no link in the writeup which would indicate farming backlinks for SEO

Replies from: Dagon
comment by Dagon · 2022-03-17T16:21:53.678Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

speculating, but perhaps establishing presence and getting karma is the purpose of this post.  And if it was upvoted, than future posts (on many sites, not LW, because it has a smaller and more active voting populace and much more aware admins) will be able to contain spam without being auto-filtered.

Replies from: Cédric
comment by Cédric · 2022-03-17T22:40:27.761Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Well, I hope you're right because I'd feel bad if someone tried to write something useful for us and it was so bad the comments are just speculation about whether the person is a spammer.

I'll keep on assuming people are actually trying though and try to provide constructive feedback and encouragement because the demand for LW posts outstrips supply. Even if the person is a spammer, perhaps being more encouraging and constructive will make others who are hesitant to post more comfortable. And if the person is not a spammer, they can use the feedback to improve on their next post and hopefully iterate until their posts become really good.