...Intelligence and character of the masses are incomparably lower than the intelligence and character of the few who produce something valuable for the community.
I do not believe that a moral philosophy can ever be founded on a scientific basis. … The valuation of life and all its nobler expressions can only come out of the soul’s yearning toward its own destiny. Every attempt to reduce ethics to scientific formulas must fail. Of that I am perfectly convinced.
My only refuge, as a serious young man, from the despair of my financial burden to my family, is that I did everything I could to never permit myself any amusements or diversions except those afforded by my studies.
In my personal experience I have hardly come to know the wretchedness of mankind better than as a result of the general theory of relativity and everything connected to it. But it doesn't bother me.