Why repeat the old errors, if there are so many new errors to commit?

With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway about the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.

The demand for certainty is one which is natural to man, but is nevertheless an intellectual vice. If you take your children for a picnic on a doubtful day, they will demand a dogmatic answer as to whether it will be fine or wet, and be disappointed in you when you cannot be sure.

... the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be.

A stupid man's report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.

The demand for certainty is one which is natural to man, but is nevertheless an intellectual vice.

I conclude that, while it is true that science cannot decide questions of value, that is because they cannot be intellectually decided at all, and lie outside the realm of truth and falsehood. Whatever knowledge is attainable, must be attained by scientific methods; and what science cannot discover, mankind cannot know.