Famed physicist Albert Einstein's advice for a happy life to a Japanese messenger has surfaced 95 years later — and is up for auction in Jerusalem.
According to an Agence France-Presse report in the Times of Israel, one of two notes, written on the stationery of the Imperial Hotel Tokyo and written during Einstein's 1922 lecture tour in Japan, urges: "A quiet and modest life brings more joy than a pursuit of success bound with constant unrest."
The other, written on a blank piece of paper, reads: "Where there's a will, there's a way."
According to AFP, the author of the theory of relativity had been only recently been told he was to receive the Nobel Prize for physics when a Japanese courier arrived at the hotel to deliver a message. The courier either refused to accept a tip, in line with local practice, or Einstein had no small change available, AFP reported.
But not wanting to the messenger to go empty-handed, Einstein wrote him the two notes by hand in German, the seller — a relative of the original messenger — told AFP.
"Maybe if you're lucky those notes will become much more valuable than just a regular tip," Einstein told the courier, according to the person's relative, who lives in Hamburg and wants to remain anonymous, AFP reported.
The auction will be held Tuesday at the Winner's auction house in Jerusalem.
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