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Wit & Attitude Quote by Albert Einstein

"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish"

About this Quote

Einstein’s line plays like a modesty statement, but it’s really a scalpel aimed at human self-importance. The hook is the pairing: “equally wise” gets offered first, a little boost to our dignity, then “equally foolish” snaps shut like a trap. Wisdom and folly aren’t opposites here; they’re twins. In one stroke he punctures the idea that intelligence - especially the kind society crowns with titles and prizes - grants moral elevation or metaphysical access.

The phrase “Before God” is doing heavy rhetorical work. Einstein wasn’t a conventional theist, which makes the invocation less sermon and more vantage point: God as the imagined horizon where human ranking systems stop mattering. It’s a cosmic courtroom where credentials, IQs, and national myths are inadmissible evidence. In that light, “equally” isn’t sentimental equality; it’s leveling. Everyone gets the same tiny share of comprehension and the same talent for delusion.

Context matters: a 20th-century physicist whose work reshaped reality also watched modernity industrialize arrogance - technocracy, nationalism, and the weaponization of genius. The subtext is a warning to experts and their fans: knowledge expands our power faster than our judgment. Einstein is nudging us toward epistemic humility, not as a virtue-signaling posture, but as a survival skill. The smartest people can be catastrophically wrong, and the rest of us can be brilliantly right by accident. Under the biggest frame imaginable, we’re all amateurs.

Quote Details

TopicWisdom
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Einstein, Albert. (2026, January 15). Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/before-god-we-are-all-equally-wise-and-equally-13640/

Chicago Style
Einstein, Albert. "Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/before-god-we-are-all-equally-wise-and-equally-13640/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/before-god-we-are-all-equally-wise-and-equally-13640/. Accessed 21 Feb. 2026.

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Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein (March 14, 1879 - April 18, 1955) was a Physicist from Germany.

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