Munich Quotes (3 quotes)
A German once has said of the Chemical Laboratory in Munich: “In diesem Hause stinkt es sehr, Dies kommt von Adolf Baeyer her.” [It stinks a lot in this house; this comes from Adolf Baeyer.]
From 'What Can the Modern Chemist Learn From the Old Alchemy?', Introductory Lecture (1917), delivered at Cornell University, written in German, translated by L.F. Audrieth, and published in Salts, Acids, and Bases: Electrolytes Stereochemistry (1929), 1, as Vol. 4 of the George Fisher Baker Non-Resident Lectureship in Chemistry at Cornell University. Translation of German part of above quote by Webmaster using Google Translate.
Read no newspapers, try to find a few friends who think as you do, read the wonderful writers of earlier times, Kant, Goethe, Lessing, and the classics of other lands, and enjoy the natural beauties of Munich’s surroundings. Make believe all the time that you are living, so to speak, on Mars among alien creatures and blot out any deeper interest in the actions of those creatures. Make friends with a few animals. Then you will become a cheerful man once more and nothing will be able to trouble you.
Letter (5 Apr 1933). As quoted in Jamie Sayen, Einstein in America: The Scientist’s Conscience in the Age of Hitler and Hiroshima (1985), 12. This is part of Einstein’s reply to a letter from a troubled, unemployed musician, presumably living in Munich.
When I came back from Munich, it was September, and I was Professor of Mathematics at the Eindhoven University of Technology. Later I learned that I had been the Department’s third choice, after two numerical analysts had turned the invitation down; the decision to invite me had not been an easy one, on the one hand because I had not really studied mathematics, and on the other hand because of my sandals, my beard and my ‘arrogance’ (whatever that may be).
…...
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
