Quotes of Albert Einstein and their relevance to today.

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."

Knowledge is one of the foundations of our society, but alone it is not enough for us to better ourselves or others. Knowledge is simply the tool whereas Imagination is the thought and the idea.  Imagination is amazing, it can lead to art, electronics, new food and even world peace – without imagination there wouldn’t be satellites, computers, books, the internet and the Berlin wall would probably still be standing.

Einstein really hit the head on the nail with this one; it’s one of his simplest and most profound quotes.

"I am convinced that He (God) does not play dice."

This is one quote that I must disagree with – while I am sure that God has his plan and all that, there are times where events seem just so contrived and random that it seems that he must be playing dice! Take me for an example – I was living in the UK as a 30 year old bachelor, my wife was in the US as a 36 year old divorcee – somehow we got chatting on the web and 14 years later we’ve been married for 13 years. Some will call it fate – me, I say God played dice and I was the result!!! Or perhaps he designed our meeting all along?

"Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind."

This whole argument about whether the Universe spontaneously appeared or was created is entirely moot for me. Stephen Hawking chimed in this week and denied the existence of God, however even if the Universe was naturally occurring, why would this preclude there being a God, or a conscience greater than the whole of humanity? Surely religion and science have common grounds where both can exist happily? I do believe that evolution is correct, and that the Universe started with the big bang – however I do believe that some form of conscience existed for eternity that may or may not have had a hand in the big bang – why do we assume that if there is a God he must have created everything – perhaps he has simply always existed and merely watched everything evolve?!

The more we can accept that science exists and some form of greater spirit probably exists, the more likely we’re going to understand all the mysteries of the universe.

“Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal.”

I am probably one of the only people in the world who uses a cell phone to make phone calls and that’s it. Even more, my cell phone stays in the car, so if someone calls me when I’m not in the car then they won’t get me!  Does it diminish my life being so ‘out of contact’? Well I survived 30 years without a cell phone or any other gadget that kept me in instant contact with others, so I can survive another 30 or 40 without this technology. For me, this instant ability to talk to all the people I know has actually reduced socialization – I see less of my friends now than I have ever – I live their lives vicariously through Facebook – heck some of my friends have babies that I have only seen in pictures . The expansion of communications, in my opinion, is not a good thing for a society – we seem to be forgetting about the need for real human contact and conversation, instead relying on a bunch of LOL, ROTFL and other stupid texting words to talk to others.

Comapanies are creating gadgets (such as the iPad) that we don’t really need – why replace books with an gadget – what’s wrong with a good old paperback! Why play games on the iPad – you can play chess, risk and a whole multitude of games around a table with friends! I for one would not be unhappy if electricity suddenly ran out!

“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”

How very true – sadly if there is a World War III it’ll be fought with devastating weapons that will leave not much more than ash and bones – those that survive will have to re-invent the wheel and sliced bread for that matter. It may be invigorating in a way, a new start – one hopes that those few that rebuild the earth, learn from the mistakes that humanity made over the last 5000 years. I doubt it somehow!

"A human being is a part of a whole, called by us _universe_, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest... a kind of optical delusion of his 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 this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

Wow – this is probably the most profound of Einstein’s quotes and the most relevant to today’s society. If we could all understand the meaning of this quote and learn from it then maybe we could learn how to get along – we are all HUMAN – we all have flesh and blood and similar ‘bits’ – we all laugh and cry, fear and hate, love and die – we are the same – we are the past, present and future – although the future is looking very grim indeed.

Will humanity through away the shackles of fear and loathing that we seem to embrace? Will we be able to understand each other and accept the differences for what they are – differences, nothing more nothing less. The minute we begin accepting differences and embracing them, the minute our future looks brighter.

And there you go – another rant over!

(The quotes I used are marked as being copyright Kevin Harris 1995 and attributed to Einstein and may be freely distributed with this acknowledgement)