Albert Einstein on Beauty and Religion

In 1931, well after he had become a famous physicist, Albert Einstein published “The World as I See It,” a brief essay that includes, near the end, the passage below — here laid out as a poem for your reading pleasure.

The most beautiful thing
we can experience
is the mysterious. 

It is the source of all
true art and science.
He to whom this emotion
is a stranger, who can
no longer pause to wonder
and stand rapt in awe,
is as good as dead:
his eyes are closed.

This insight into the mystery of life,
coupled though it be with fear,
has also given rise to religion.

To know that what is
impenetrable to us
really exists, manifesting itself
as the highest wisdom
and the most radiant beauty
which our dull faculties
can comprehend only
in their most primitive forms —

this knowledge,
this feeling,
is at the center
of true religiousness.

+ Albert Einstein