The notion of the infinite expanse and copiousness of the cosmos is the result of the mixture, carried to the extreme limit, of laborious creation and free self-determination.

There was once a community of scoundrels, that is to say, they were not scoundrels, but ordinary people.

Beyond a certain point there is no return. This point has to be reached.

Association with human beings lures one into self-observation.

Logic may indeed be unshakeable, but it cannot withstand a man who is determined to live.

Every new discovery is assumed at once into the sum total of knowledge, and with that ceases in a sense to be a discovery; it dissolves into the whole and disappears, and one must have a trained scientific eye even to recognize it after that.

The tremendous world I have inside my head. But how free myself and free it without being torn to pieces. And a thousand times rather be torn to pieces than retain it in me or bury it. That, indeed, is why I am here, that is quite clear to me.