Yes, yes, I see it all! — an enormous social activity, a mighty civilization, a profuseness of science, of art, of industry, of morality, and afterwords, when we have filled the world with industrial marvels, with great factories, with roads, museums and libraries, we shall fall exhausted at the foot of it all, and it will subsist — for whom? Was man made for science or was science made for man?

The only way to give finality to the world is to give it consciousness.

Is there anything more terrible than a "call"? It affords an occasion for the exchange of the most threadbare commonplaces. Calls and the theatre are the two great centers for the propagation of platitudes.

To love with the spirit is to pity, and he who pities most loves most.

Knowledge for the sake of knowledge! Truth for truth's sake! This is inhuman.

My aim is to agitate and disturb people. I'm not selling bread; I'm selling yeast.

We never know, believe me, when we have succeeded best.