ALBERT EINSTEIN 95 



ness. And the wish to withdraw into myself increases 

 with the years. 



Such isolation is sometimes bitter; but I do not 

 regret being cut off from the understanding and sym- 

 pathy of other men. I lose something by it, to be 

 sure, but I am compensated for it in being rendered 

 independent of the customs, opinions, and prejudices 

 of others; and am not tempted to rest my peace of 

 mind upon such shifting foundations. 



My political ideal is democracy. Every one should 

 be respected as an individual, but no one idolized. It 

 is an irony of fate that I should have been showered 

 with so much uncalled-for and unmerited admiration 

 and esteem. Perhaps this adulation springs from the 

 unfulfilled wish of the multitude to comprehend the 

 few ideas which I, with my weak powers, have ad- 

 vanced. 



Full well do I know that In order to attain any 

 definite goal it is imperative that one person should 

 do the thinking and commanding and carry most of 

 the responsibility. But those who are led should not 

 be driven, and they should be allowed to choose their 

 leader. It seems to me that the distinctions separat- 

 ing the social classes are false; in the last analysis they 

 rest on force. I am convinced that degeneracy follows 

 every autocratic system of violence, for violence in- 

 evitably attracts moral Inferiors. Time has proved 

 that illustrious tyrants are succeeded by scoundrels. 



For this reason I have always been passionately op- 

 posed to such regimes as exist In Russia and Italy 

 to-day. The thing which has discredited the Euro- 

 pean forms of democracy Is not the basic theory of 

 democracy itself, which some say Is at fault, but the 



