The most beautiful experience

we can have is the mysterious.

It is the fundamental emotion

which stands at the cradle

of true art and true science.

Whoever does not know it

and can no longer wonder,

no longer marvel,

is as good as dead,

and his eyes are dimmed.

It was the experience of mystery

—even if mixed with fear—

that engendered religion.

A knowledge of the existence

of something we cannot penetrate,

our perceptions of the profoundest reason

and the most radiant beauty,

which only in their most primitive forms

are accessible to our minds

—it is this knowledge and this emotion

that constitute true religiosity;

in this sense, and in this alone,

I am a deeply religious man.

I cannot conceive of a God who

rewards and punishes his creatures,

or has a will of the kind that

we experience in ourselves.

Neither can I nor would I want

to conceive of an individual

that survives his physical death;

let feeble souls,

from fear or absurd egoism,

cherish such thoughts.

I am satisfied with the mystery

of the eternity of life

and with the awareness

and a glimpse of the marvelous

structure of the existing world,

together with the devoted striving

to comprehend a portion,

be it ever so tiny,

of the Reason

that manifests itself

 in nature.

Albert Einstein

Mein Weltbild, Amsterdam: Querido Verlag, 1934