I’ve been doing some online duties for my paper these days. One of the tasks involves coming up with a quote from a notable person in history, and put it in some sort of context.

Tomorrow being the first day of autumn (and the autumnal equinox), I found a quote from Albert Einstein that was put in a time capsule and buried on the site of the World Fair in NYC in 1938, to be opened in the year 6939.

Here’s the quote:

Our time is rich in inventive minds, the inventions of which could facilitate our lives considerably. We are crossing the seas by power and utilise power also in order to relieve humanity from all tiring muscular work. We have learned to fly and we are able to send messages and news without any difficulty over the entire world through electric waves. However, the production and distribution of commodities is entirely unorganised so that everybody must live in fear of being eliminated from the economic cycle, in this way suffering for the want of everything. Further more, people living in different countries kill each other at irregular time intervals, so that also for this reason any one who thinks about the future must live in fear and terror. This is due to the fact that the intelligence and character of the masses are incomparably lower than the intelligence and character of the few who produce some thing valuable for the community. I trust that posterity will read these statements with a feeling of proud and justified superiority. — Albert Einstein

The time capsule was lowered into the ground at high noon on Sept. 23, 1938, the precise moment of the autumnal equinox.

— Jillian