Einstein -- Paradise Lost, and First USA Impressions

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Paradise Lost

Written shortly after the establishment in 1919 of the League of Nations and first published in French. Also published in Mein Weltbild, Amsterdam: Querido Verlag, 1934

As late as the seventeenth century the savants and artists of all Europe were so closely united by the bond of a common ideal that cooperation between them was scarcely affected by political events. This unity was further strengthened by the general use of the Latin Language.

Today we look back at this state of affairs as at a lost paradise. The passions of nationalism have destroyed this community of the intellect, and the Latin language which once united the whole world is dead. The men of learning have become representatives of the most extreme national traditions and lost their sense of an intellectual commonwealth.

Nowadays we are faced with the dismaying fact that the politicians, the practical men of affairs, have become the exponents of international ideas. It is they who have created the League of Nations

My First Impressions of the USA
An interview for Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant, 1921. Appeared in Berliner Tageblatt, July 7, 1921

...it is a welcome symptom in an age which is commonly denounced as materialistic, that it makes heroes of men whose goals lie wholly in the intellectual and moral sphere. This proves that knowledge and justice are ranked above wealth and power by a large section of the human race. My experience teaches me that this idealistic outlook is particularly prevalent in America, which is decried as a singularly materialistic country.