http://home.iitk.ac.in/~vinit/folder/Albert%20Einstien/albert_einstein_the_world_as_i_see_it_txt.pdf
Congratulations to Dr. Solf
I am delighted to be able to offer you, Dr. Solf, the heartiest congratulations,
the congratulations of Lessing College, of which you have become an
indispensable pillar, and the congratulations of all who are convinced of the
need for close contact between science and art and the public which is hungry
for spiritual nourishment.
You have not hesitated to apply your energies to a field where there are no
laurels to be won, but quiet, loyal work to be done in the interests of the
general standard of intellectual and spiritual life, which is in peculiar danger
to-day owing to a variety of circumstances. Exaggerated respect for athletics,
an excess of coarse impressions which the complications of life through the
technical discoveries of recent years has brought with it, the increased severity
of the struggle for existence due to the economic crisis, the brutalization of
political life--all these factors are hostile to the ripening of the character and
the desire for real culture, and stamp our age as barbarous, materialistic, and
superficial. Specialization in every sphere of intellectual work is producing an
everwidening gulf between the intellectual worker and the non-specialist,
which makes it more difficult for the life of the nation to be fertilized and
enriched by the achievements of art and science.
But contact between the intellectual and the masses must not be lost. It is
necessary for the elevation of society and no less so for renewing the strength
of the intellectual worker; for the flower of science does not grow in the
desert. For this reason you, Herr Solf, have devoted a portion of your
energies to Lessing College, and we are grateful to you for doing so. And we
wish you further success and happiness in your work for this noble cause.
Of Wealth
I am absolutely convinced that no wealth in the world can help humanity forward, even in the hands of the most devoted worker in this cause. The
example of great and pure characters is the only thing that can produce fine
ideas and noble deeds. Money only appeals to selfishness and always tempts
its owners irresistibly to abuse it.
Can anyone imagine Moses, Jesus, or Gandhi armed with the money-bags of
Carnegie?
Teachers and Pupils
An address to children
(The principal art of the teacher is to awaken the joy in creation
and knowledge.)
My dear Children,
I rejoice to see you before me to-day, happy youth of a sunny and fortunate
land.
Bear in mind that the wonderful things you learn in your schools are the work
of many generations, produced by enthusiastic effort and infinite labour in
every country of the world. All this is put into your hands as your inheritance
in order that you may receive it, honour it, add to it, and one day faithfully
hand it on to your children. Thus do we mortals achieve immortality in the
permanent things which we create in common.
If you always keep that in mind you will find a meaning in life and work and
acquire the right attitude towards other nations and ages.
Paradise Lost
As late as the seventeenth century the savants and artists of all Europe were
so closely united by the bond of a common ideal that co-operation between
them was scarcely affected by political events. This unity was further
strengthened by the general use of the Latin language.
To-day we look back at this state of affairs as at a lost paradise. The passions
of nationalism have destroyed this community of the intellect, and the Latin
language, which once united the whole world, is dead. The men of learning
have become the chief mouthpieces of national tradition and lost their sense of
an intellectual commonwealth.
Nowadays we are faced with the curious fact that the politicians, the practical
men of affairs, have become the exponents of international ideas. It is they
who have created the League of Nations.
Sunday, December 30, 2018
Sunday, June 10, 2018
《Letters To a Young Poet》 by Rainer Maria Rilke
LETTER ONE
http://www.mixolydian.org/goliard/library/rilke/rilke1.html
With nothing can one approach a work of art so little as with critical words: they always come down to more or less happy misunderstandings. Things are not all so comprehensible and expressible as one would mostly have you believe; most events are inexpressible, taking place in a realm which no word has ever entered, and more inexpressible than all else are works of art, mysterious existences, the life of which, while ours passes away, endures.
This above all—ask yourself in the stillest hour of your night: must I write? Delve into yourself for a deep answer. And if this should be affirmative, if you may meet this earnest question with a strong and simple, "I must," then build your life according to this necessity; your life even into its most indifferent and slightest hour must be a sign of this urge and a testimony to it. Then draw near to Nature. Then try, like some first human being, to say what you see and experience and love and lose.
If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches; for to the creator there is no poverty and no poor indifferent place.
A work of art is good if it has sprung from necessity. In this nature of its origin lies the judgement of it: there is no other. Therefore, my dear sir, I know no advice for you save this: to go into yourself and test the deeps in which your life takes rise; at its source you will find the answer to the question whether you must create. Accept it, just as it sounds, without inquiring into it.
For the creator must be a world for himself and find everything in himself and in Nature to whom he has attached himself.
after all I do only want to advise you to keep growing quietly and seriously throughout your whole development; you cannot disturb it more rudely than by looking outward and expecting from the outside replies to questions that only your inmost feeling in your most hushed hour can perhaps answer.
... ... ... ...
LETTER SIX
http://www.mixolydian.org/goliard/library/rilke/rilke6.html
... yes even if, outside of any position, you had merely sought some light and independent contact with society, this feeling of constraint would not have been spared you.- It is so everywhere; but that is no reason for fear or sorrow; if there is nothing in common between you and other people, try being close to things, they will not desert you; there are the nights still and the winds that go through the trees and across many lands; among things and with the animals everything is still full of happening, in which you may participate; and children are still the way you were as a child, sad like that and happy,—and if you think of your childhood you live among them again, among the solitary children. and the grownups are nothing, and their dignity has no value.
... ... ... ...
LETTER SEVEN
http://www.mixolydian.org/goliard/library/rilke/rilke7.html
To love is good, too: love being difficult. For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation. For this reason young people, who are beginners in everything, cannot yet know love: they have to learn it. With their whole being, with all their forces, gathered close about their lonely, timid, upward-beating heart, they must learn to love. But learning-time is always a long, secluded time, and so loving, for a long while ahead and far on into life, is-solitude, intensified and deepened loneness for him who loves. Love is at first not anything that means merging, giving over, and uniting with another (for what would a union be of something unclarified and unfinished, still subordinate-?), It is a high inducement to the individual to ripen, to become something in himself, to become world for himself for another's sake, it is a great exacting claim upon him, something that chooses him out and calls him to vast things.
http://www.mixolydian.org/goliard/library/rilke/rilke1.html
With nothing can one approach a work of art so little as with critical words: they always come down to more or less happy misunderstandings. Things are not all so comprehensible and expressible as one would mostly have you believe; most events are inexpressible, taking place in a realm which no word has ever entered, and more inexpressible than all else are works of art, mysterious existences, the life of which, while ours passes away, endures.
This above all—ask yourself in the stillest hour of your night: must I write? Delve into yourself for a deep answer. And if this should be affirmative, if you may meet this earnest question with a strong and simple, "I must," then build your life according to this necessity; your life even into its most indifferent and slightest hour must be a sign of this urge and a testimony to it. Then draw near to Nature. Then try, like some first human being, to say what you see and experience and love and lose.
If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches; for to the creator there is no poverty and no poor indifferent place.
A work of art is good if it has sprung from necessity. In this nature of its origin lies the judgement of it: there is no other. Therefore, my dear sir, I know no advice for you save this: to go into yourself and test the deeps in which your life takes rise; at its source you will find the answer to the question whether you must create. Accept it, just as it sounds, without inquiring into it.
For the creator must be a world for himself and find everything in himself and in Nature to whom he has attached himself.
after all I do only want to advise you to keep growing quietly and seriously throughout your whole development; you cannot disturb it more rudely than by looking outward and expecting from the outside replies to questions that only your inmost feeling in your most hushed hour can perhaps answer.
... ... ... ...
LETTER SIX
http://www.mixolydian.org/goliard/library/rilke/rilke6.html
... yes even if, outside of any position, you had merely sought some light and independent contact with society, this feeling of constraint would not have been spared you.- It is so everywhere; but that is no reason for fear or sorrow; if there is nothing in common between you and other people, try being close to things, they will not desert you; there are the nights still and the winds that go through the trees and across many lands; among things and with the animals everything is still full of happening, in which you may participate; and children are still the way you were as a child, sad like that and happy,—and if you think of your childhood you live among them again, among the solitary children. and the grownups are nothing, and their dignity has no value.
... ... ... ...
LETTER SEVEN
http://www.mixolydian.org/goliard/library/rilke/rilke7.html
To love is good, too: love being difficult. For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation. For this reason young people, who are beginners in everything, cannot yet know love: they have to learn it. With their whole being, with all their forces, gathered close about their lonely, timid, upward-beating heart, they must learn to love. But learning-time is always a long, secluded time, and so loving, for a long while ahead and far on into life, is-solitude, intensified and deepened loneness for him who loves. Love is at first not anything that means merging, giving over, and uniting with another (for what would a union be of something unclarified and unfinished, still subordinate-?), It is a high inducement to the individual to ripen, to become something in himself, to become world for himself for another's sake, it is a great exacting claim upon him, something that chooses him out and calls him to vast things.
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