Albert Einstein Quotes
The right to search for truth implies also a duty.
Einstein, Albert. Message to the 43rd meeting of the Italian Society for the Advancement of Science. 1950. Quoted in Calaprice, Alice. The Ultimate Quotable Einstein. Princeton University Press, 2010, p. 434.
Muir was tried and convicted for sedition for his speech, and at his trial in August 1793 he repeated the quotation claiming that it was not seditious. He was advocating extending the vote to male, non-land owners. See Robert MacQueen Braxfield.
Note that the two do NOT ALWAYS coincide. There are those who argue that law should be respected, right or wrong. There are also those who argue that law should be respected, only when it is in the right. Note also that “respect” and “obedience” are two different things. Some people argue that law and the courts and government must have respect. Others that they are only due obedience but not necessarily respect when they are in the wrong. Still others, like Thoreau, that obedience even is not required when the law is wrong. There are those who take this to the degree that obedience to a “wrong” law is wrong and there is a DUTY to disobey a wrong law. However, a more nuanced view does not treat all laws as the same importance. I may think a particular tax is unjust and wrong, but obedience does not necessarily have moral consequences. A law that says that people with a certain religion must not be hired, however, is sufficiently immoral that I am obliged to disobey it.
Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest physicists of all time. Einstein is known for developing the theory of relativity, but he also made important contributions to the development of the theory of quantum mechanics. Relativity and quantum mechanics are together the two pillars of modern physics. His mass–energy equivalence formula E = mc2, which arises from relativity theory, has been dubbed "the world's most famous equation". His work is also known for its influence on the philosophy of science. He received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his services to theoretical physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect", a pivotal step in the development of quantum theory. His intellectual achievements and originality resulted in "Einstein" becoming synonymous with "genius".
