1 2 4 D O C U M E N T 1 0 9 W I S H E S F O R 1 9 2 8 consider the most admirable of your classmates and other people you know better, then you will see no hierarchy. The healthy and harmoniously feeling person takes pleasure in his friend, his beloved, his dog, and whatever else is crawling around, and delights in all joys and all life and takes everything just as it is. The deterioration of the human race is certainly bad, one of the worst things.[5] That is why I cannot forgive Albert his sins. I instinctively avoid meeting him, be- cause I cannot show him a happy face. But that healthy intellectual work (not un- reasonably intense) has a bad influence on procreation—that I cannot believe. Do you believe that your father sinned in this way? Then forgive me your existence. Ultimately, intensive production of thoughts and the production of children can be separated if necessary. But I would not want Beethoven to have left his works un- written in order to pursue the latter. Creation needs its luxury if it is not to regret God. That a large part of morality is life-promoting in my sense, I cannot, and you cannot, deny. But the part of it that I treasure cannot undermine the vital joy in ex- istence as I observe it in my well and cheerfully advised fellow humans. Recluses like Nietzsche are not good judges in this domain. It is no wonder if they arrive at a tiger ideal. Warm wishes to you and to Mama[6] from your Papa Greetings to Albert if he’s there. 109. New Year’s Wishes for 1928[1] [Einstein 1928h] Dated 24 December 1927[2] Published 2 January 1928 In: Der Montag Morgen, 2 January 1928, p. 3. I predict for 1928 a German Armed Forces budget of billion and would pre- fer one of ¼ billion.
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