A human being is part of the whole, called by us “universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest – a kind of optical delusion of 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.

Albert Einstein

Honey for the Bees

19 Comments CherryPie on Aug 2nd 2015

19 Responses to “Cherie’s Place – Thought for the Week”

  1. All very profound. Who does he think he is? Albert Einstein?

  2. Amfortas says:

    Optical delusion of consciousness, eh?

    And God said, “let there be Light”, and there was light, and it was Good. Einstein said, “By crikey, look how fast it goes !!”

  3. Ginnie says:

    Einstein probably had no idea back then how timely those words would be TODAY. WOW. And what a magnificent image for the quote, Cherry.

  4. Astrid says:

    That was a lot of slow reading for me… Albert knew what he was saying, even today it will make sense. Wonderful picture. Great DOF

  5. I must smell like carbon.
    Cos we’re all made of stardust.
    Do you smell like magnesium? ;)

  6. Chrysalis says:

    Was this said before or after Einstein wrote the letter to Roosevelt asking the US to look into atomic physics because he incorrectly believed the Nazis were already building an atomic bomb? ;)

    In all fairness, he regretted that decision later, and I agree with him, here – staring at our own prior scars too long prevents us from seeing the full beauty of others

    • CherryPie says:

      Einstein was a ’seeing’ man of his time. Sometimes the ’seeing’ gets muddle up with the politics of the time.

      And that can lead to regrets…

  7. Oh this is my song…what I have been working toward….I just wrote a poem recently about this very topic.

  8. ubermouth says:

    Lovely daily quote. We would suffer less ills in the world and internal conflicts if we focused on becoming more in tune with nature( said in a totally NON-flaky tone, of course). :)