With the unknown, one is confronted with danger, discomfort, and care; the first instinct is to abolish these painful states. First principle: any explanation is better than none. . . . The causal instinct is thus conditional upon, and excited by, the feeling of fear. The "why?" shall, if at all possible, not give the cause for its own sake so much as for a particular kind of cause -- a cause that is comforting, liberating, and relieving.

Books for all the world are always foul-smelling books: the smell of small people clings to them.

Why does man not see things? He is himself standing in the way: he conceals things.

Discontent is the seed of ethics.

The vain.- We are like shop windows in which we are continually arranging, concealing or illuminating the supposed qualities other ascribe to us - in order to deceive ourselves.

It is not the strengths, but the durations of great sentiments that make great men.

Better know nothing than half-know many things.