In school I came across `The World as I See It` by Albert Einstein. It resonated with me on many levels and even made me actually think about things which I wa

In school I came across `The World as I See It` by Albert Einstein. It resonated with me on many levels and even made me actually think about things which I was somehow not thinking through just because no one questions them in general, especially in a country where patriotism is celebrated as a virtue. It is full of wonderful ideas and parts of it have been thought through in great depth. Some excerpts which I really liked and have sort of stayed imprinted in my brain since: > This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of the herd nature, the military system, which I abhor. That a man can take pleasure in marching in formation to the strains of a band is enough to make me despise him. He has only been given his big brain by mistake; a backbone was all he needed. > I am convinced that the great men--those whose achievements, even though in a restricted sphere, set them above their fellows--are animated to an overwhelming extent by the same ideals. But they have little influence on the course of political events. It almost looks as if this domain, on which the fate of nations depends, had inevitably to be given over to violence and irresponsibility. > What an extraordinary situation is that of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he feels it. But from the point of view of daily life, without going deeper, we exist for our fellow-men--in the first place for those on whose smiles and welfare all our happiness depends, and next for all those unknown to us personally with whose destinies we are bound up by the tie of sympathy. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_as_I_See_It_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_as_I_See_It_(book) - https://archive.org/details/worldasiseeit00eins https://archive.org/details/worldasiseeit00eins