Why Einstein Just Got Ranked as History’s Greatest Hero

Two predictions of Albert Einstein’s—one scientific, one sentimental—have recently been confirmed.

The first came early in 2016: the existence of . The second came late last month: the handsome price of a pair of notes Einstein wrote, in, had empty pockets but didn’t come up empty. He dished out some priceless wisdom to the young man—“A calm and modest life brings more happiness than the pursuit of success combined with constant restlessness,” he wrote in German—that went on to fetch, as Einstein foresaw, a hefty price. He told the bell boy, according to the Jerusalem-based auction house, Winner’s Auctions and Exhibition, that his note could be worth more than a tip someday. Someone bought it for $1.56 million. (Einstein’s second note to the bellboy, far more inexpensive at $250,000, was also more cliché: “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”) It was far more than the auction house had predicted it’d go for: $5,000 to $8,000. The bellboy’s descendants, to the New York , were “elated by their new riches.”