EINSTEIN

I came upon this quote from Albert Einstein in a novel I'm reading now:

"A human being is part of the whole, called by us 'Universe', a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This  delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

Buddhism, in a nutshell? I have no way of verifying the accuracy of this attribution, but according to the author of the novel it comes from a letter written in the attempt to console a grieving father. It touched me, and I thought it I would share it with others who might not have come across it.