Somebody who only reads newspapers and at best books of contemporary authors looks to me like an extremely near-sighted person who scorns eyeglasses. He is completely dependent on the prejudices and fashions of his times, since he never gets to see or hear anything else.
Interpretation
Relying solely on contemporary media limits one's perspective and understanding of the world.
In this quote, Albert Einstein emphasizes the importance of broadening one’s intellectual horizons beyond modern media and literature. He likens someone who only consumes contemporary sources to a near-sighted person who refuses to wear glasses, suggesting that such limited exposure results in a narrow worldview shaped by current trends and biases, preventing true understanding and insight.
In practice
In a speech about the value of diverse literary sources, one could cite Einstein's quote to encourage students to explore a wider range of literature.
I cannot then believe in this concept of an anthropomorphic God who has the powers of interfering with these natural laws. As I said before, the most beautiful and most profound religious emotion that we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. And this mysticality is the power of all true science.
If I would follow your advice and Jesus could perceive it, he, as a Jewish teacher, surely would not approve of such behavior.
I want to know all Gods thoughts; all the rest are just details.
In the middle of adversity there is great opportunity.
I do not believe that civilization will be wiped out in a war fought with the atomic bomb. Perhaps two-thirds of the people of the earth will be killed.
To me the worst thing seems to be a school principally to work with methods of fear, force and artificial authority. Such treatment destroys the sound sentiments, the sincerity and the self-confidence of pupils and produces a subservient subject.
An expert is someone who has succeeded in making decisions and judgements simpler through knowing what to pay attention to and what to ignore.
The only true voyage, the only bath in the Fountain of Youth, would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, to see the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to see the hundred universes that each of them sees, that each of them is; and this we do [with great artists]; with artists like these we do really fly from star to star.
The distinction between pretending you are better than you are and beginning to be better in reality is finer than moral sleuth hounds conceive.
The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments.
Tomorrow is the day when idlers work, and fools reform, and mortal men lay hold on heaven.
Doubt everything or believe everything: these are two equally convenient strategies. With either we dispense with the need for reflection.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.