Albert Einstein, in a letter to Guy H. Raner Jr. (28 September 1949), from article by Michael R. Gilmore in Skeptic magazine, Vol. 5, No. 2 (1997)
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I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one. You may call me an agnostic, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth. I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our own being.

— Albert Einstein on Religion

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one. You may call me an agnostic, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth. I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our own being." in the context of "Albert Einstein, in a letter to Guy H. Raner Jr. (28 September 1949), from article by Michael R. Gilmore in Skeptic magazine, Vol. 5, No. 2 (1997)" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

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Source: Wikiquote: "Religion" (E) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed February 08, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Albert Einstein

About Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein (14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a Jewish German theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest physicists of all time. Einstein is known for developing the theory of relativity, but he also made important contributions to the development of the theory of quantum mechanics. Together, relativity and quantum mechanics are the two pillars of modern physics. He won the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics for his explanation of the photoelectric effect.