Einstein was familiar with the mystic experience, and he describes it with more precision and inherent awe than any accounts I have come across. His quotations mark him as a wonderfully wise man. But the man was known for his brilliance in physics, not illumination. Where's the science, you masy ask...
"Out yonder was this huge world, which exists independently of us human beings and which stands before us like a great, eternal riddle, at least partially accessible to our inspection and thinking. The contemplation of this world beckoned as a liberation, and I soon noticed that many a man whom I had learned to esteem and to admire had found inner freedom and security in its pursuit. The mental grasp of this extra-personal world within the frame of our capabilities presented itself to my mind, half consciously, half unconsciously, as a supreme goal."
"The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible."
"A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty ... We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive."
"Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour.
Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute.
THAT's relativity."
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