Capitalism has brought with it progress, not merely in production but also in knowledge.

I was supposed to choose apractical profession, but this was simply unbearable to me.

Whatever your problems in math are, I assure mine are greater.

The greatest activity of which man is capable: Opening up yet another fragment of the frontier of beauty.

I have no particular talent. I am merely inquisitive.

It strikes me as unfair, and even in bad taste, to select a few of them for boundless admiration, attributing superhuman powers of mind and character to them. This has been my fate, and the contrast between the popular estimate of my powers and achievements and the reality is simply grotesque.

To put it boldly, it is the attempt at a posterior reconstruction of existence by the process of conceptualization.