I have only a small flickering light to guide me in the darkness of a thick forest. Up comes a theologian and blows it out.

Which is the greater merit, to enlighten the human race, which remains forever, or to save one's fatherland, which is perishable?

In general, children, like men, and men, like children, prefer entertainment to education.

This root [the potato], no matter how much you prepare it, is tasteless and floury. It cannot pass for an agreeable food, but it supplies a food sufficiently abundant and sufficiently healthy for men who ask only to sustain themselves. The potato is criticized with reason for being windy, but what matters windiness for the vigorous organisms of peasants and laborers?

Whether God exists or does not exist, He has come to rank among the most sublime and useless truths.

What has not been examined impartially has not been well examined. Skepticism is therefore the first step towards truth.

Evil always turns up in this world through some genius or other.