Philosophers are adults who persist in asking childish questions.

Out of the crooked timber of humanity, nothing completely straight was ever made

There is no a prior reason for supposing that the truth, when it is discovered, will necessarily prove interesting.

Life may be seen through many windows, none of them necessarily clear or opaque, less or more distorting than any of the others.

The most passionate, consistent, extreme and implacable enemy of the Enlightenment and ... all forms of rationalism ... was Johann Georg Hamann. His influence, direct and indirect, upon the romantic revolt against universalism and scientific method ... was considerable and perhaps crucial.

True knowledge is knowledge of why things are as they are, and not merely what they are.

No perfect solution is, not merely in practice, but in principle, possible in human affairs, and any determined attempt to produce it is likely to lead to suffering, disillusionment and failure.