Albert Einstein Quotes Online
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Albert Einstein Quotes - Last Words
When Einstein died on April 18, 1955 he left a piece of writing ending in an unfinished sentence.
These were his last words:
In essence, the conflict that exists today is no more than an old-style struggle for power, once again presented to mankind in semi religious trappings. The difference is that, this time, the development of atomic power has imbued the struggle with a ghostly character; for both parties know and admit that, should the quarrel deteriorate into actual war, mankind is doomed. Despite this knowledge, statesmen in responsible positions on both sides continue to employ the well-known technique of seeking to intimidate and demoralize the opponent by marshaling superior military strength. They do so even though such a policy entails the risk of war and doom. Not one statesman in a position of responsibility has dared to pursue the only course that holds out any promise of peace, the course of supranational security, since for a statesman to follow such a course would be tantamount to political suicide. Political passions, once they have been fanned into flame, exact their victims ... Citater fra...
"One of
the most disturbing facts that came out in the [Adolf] Eichmann trial was that
a psychiatrist examined him and pronounced him perfectly sane. I do not doubt
it at all, and that is precisely why I find it disturbing. . . The sanity
of Eichmann is disturbing. We equate sanity with a sense of justice, with
humaneness, with prudence, with the capacity to love and understand other
people. We rely on the sane people of the world to preserve it from barbarism,
madness, destruction. And now it begins to dawn on us that it is precisely the
sane ones who are the most dangerous. It is the sane ones, the well-adapted
ones, who can without qualms and without nausea aim the missiles and press the
buttons that will initiate the great festival of destruction that they, the
sane ones, have prepared. What makes us so sure, after all, that the danger
comes from a psychotic getting into a position to fire the first shot in a
nuclear war? Psychotics will be suspect. The sane ones will keep them far from
the button. No one suspects the sane, and the sane ones will have perfectly
good reasons, logical, well-adjusted reasons, for firing the shot. They will be
obeying sane orders that have come sanely down the chain of command. And
because of their sanity they will have no qualms at all. When the missiles take
off, then, it will be no mistake."
"A
Devout Meditation in Memory of Adolf Eichmann" in Raids on the
Unspeakable." Thomas Merton - New York: New Directions Publishing Co.,
1964
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