Strive Not To Be A Success

This statement comes from the same May 2, 1955 LIFE magazine interview in which journalist William Miller visited Einstein with his son. The full passage reads: "Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value. He is considered successful in our day who gets more out of life than he puts in. But a man of value will give more than he receives." It is one of a cluster of verified quotes from what proved to be one of Einstein's last extended public interviews; he died on April 18, 1955, just weeks after the article was published.