Einstein’s 1921 Nobel Prize Portrait

I’m not sure if we should be lionizing our geniuses, but in the face of all we don’t know, what else can we do? Albert Einstein is the nearest we’ve come so far to a secular wise man. Here he is on the subject he spent his life pondering: the mystery of the universe:

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead:  his eyes are closed. This insight into the mystery of life, coupled though it be with fear, has also given rise to religion. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms – this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I belong in the ranks of devoutly religious men.”

– Albert Einstein, “Strange is Our Situation Here Upon Earth,” from Living Philosophies.