“How can cosmic religious feeling be communicated from one person to another, if it can give rise to no definite notion of a God and no theology? In my view, it is the most important function of art and science to awaken this feeling and keep it alive in those who are receptive to it.”
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Source: Albert Einstein, Religion and Science, The New York Times Magazine, 9 November 1930
About this quote
Einstein gives art and science a shared task: cultivating receptiveness to order, beauty, and significance that cannot be reduced to doctrine. The passage is especially useful because it links two modes of inquiry often discussed as opposites.
When to use it
- Use it to introduce an exhibition or lecture that places scientific discovery beside artistic responses to the same natural world.
- Share it with researchers and artists discussing how wonder can motivate disciplined work without becoming a formal theology.
- Pair it with Einstein's writing on imagination when explaining why creativity matters in both laboratories and studios.