THE REASON FOR LIFE: According to Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Leo Tolstoy

Very few twenty-century scientists made as a lasting influence on modern society as Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud. Physicists routinely use the theories Einstein developed a century ago to analyse and comprehend cosmological and quantum phenomena. Similarly, some of the vital models contemporary psychologists routinely apply in order to explain psychosexual developments and human psyches are credited to Freud. Perhaps less known to the general public is the magnitude of influence Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy had on both Einstein and Freud. Einstein once declared: “Dostoevsky gives me more than any scientist, more than Gauss.” Freud too ranked Dostoevsky’s alongside the works of Shakespeare in terms of its literary significance. Tolstoy had likewise influenced Einstein and Freud.