Written on 11 March 1952 to Carl Seelig, the Swiss writer then researching what became the first full biography of Einstein, this letter is remembered for a single sentence. Einstein stated that he had no special gift, only a passionate curiosity.

Seelig had been corresponding with Einstein since 1952 for Albert Einstein: Eine dokumentarische Biographie, published in 1954, and had also edited the German collection Mein Weltbild. The exchange gave Einstein repeated occasion to describe his own working life to someone assembling a record of it.

The remark was not a one-off. He put a similar thought to Hans Muehsam in a letter of 4 March 1953. In both cases the emphasis falls on sustained interest rather than on the innate ability commonly attributed to him.