The truth is not a crystal that can be slipped into one's pocket, but an endless current into which one falls headlong.

He who is allowed to do as he likes will soon run his head into a brick wall out of sheer frustration.

The proverbial notion of historical distance consists in our having lost ninety-five of every hundred original facts, so the remaining ones can be arranged however one likes.

Have we not huddled in bunkers, while some premonition of tomorrow hung in the air and a comrade started singing? Oh, it felt so melancholy! And it was kitsch.

A politician who climbs high over the bodies of the slain is described as vile or great according to the degree of his success.

But how do I get to having to write a book?... It was a mother who bore me, not an inkwell!

Scientific reason, with its strict conscience, its lack of prejudice, and its determination to question every result again the moment it might lead to the least intellectual advantage, does in an area of secondary interest what we ought to be doing with the basic questions of life.