Lake Titicaca above Cocacabana, Bolivia

* an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.

 Einstein wrote, “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.”  What did Einstein mean by “the mysterious?”  I don’t think he meant that science is full of unpredictable or unknowable supernatural forces.  I believe that he meant a sense of awe, a sense that there are things larger than us, that we do not have all the answers at this moment.  A sense that we can stand right at the edge between known and unknown and gaze into that cavern and be exhilarated rather than frightened.  Just as Einstein suggested, I have experienced that beautiful mystery both as a physicist and as a novelist.  As a physicist, in the infinite mystery of physical nature.  As a novelist, in the  infinite mystery of human nature and the power of words to portray some of that mystery.     

Alan Lightman in A Sense of the Mysterious:  Science and the Human Spirit

Comments are welcome!