The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is something that our minds cannot grasp, whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly: this is religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I am a devoutly religious man.



Albert Einstein

From Einstein & Faith by Walter isaacson,  an excerpt from his newly published book Einstein: His Life and Universe.

Below is the Albert Einstein Memorial in front of the National Academy of Science in Washington, sculpted by my friend, Bob Berks.  Einstein is contemplating the universe spread out before his feet.