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'Somehow running away seldom seems to work out well unless you have a pretty good idea what you're running to."

Unfortunately there were certain persons with elastic principles.

There was often a great deal of grown-up fuss that seemed disproportionate to causes.

The ways of the world were very puzzling. . . .

Wondering why one's friends chose to marry the people they did is unprofitable, but recurrent.

"Life in all its forms is strife; the better matched the opponents, the harder the struggle. The most powerful of all weapons is intelligence; any intelligent form dominates by, and therefore survives by, its intelligence."

"This isn't a nice cosy world for anyone—especially not for anyone that's different," he said.

"Knowledge?" said the doctor. "Yes, I suppose that is it. For ever and for ever seeking knowledge. And we don't even know why we seek it. It's an instinct, like self-preservation; and about as comprehensible. Why, I wonder, do I keep on living. I know I've got to die sooner or later, yet I take the best care I can that it shall be later instead of finishing the thing off in a reasonable manner. After all, I've done my bit—propagated my species, and yet for some inscrutable reason I want to go on living and learning. Just an instinct. Some kink in the evolutionary process caused this passion for knowledge, and the result is man—an odd little creature, scuttling around and piling up mountains of this curious commodity.

What do you suppose will happen when one day a man sits back in his chair and says: 'Knowledge is complete'? You see, it just sounds silly. We're so used to collecting it, that we can't imagine a world where it is all collected and finished."

In fact, science can accomplish nothing by the consideration of individual facts; from time to time it must cast its glance at the world as a whole.

[E]very enlightening progress made in science is accompanied with a certain feeling of disillusionment. We discover that that which appeared wonderful to us is no more wonderful than other things which we know instinctively and regard as self-evident; nay, that the contrary would be much more wonderful; that everywhere the same fact expresses itself. Our puzzle turns out then to be a puzzle no more; it vanishes into nothingness, and takes its place among the shadows of history.

[A]ll things in the world are connected with one another and depend on one another, and...we... and all our thoughts are... a part of nature.

The function of science... is to replace experience. Thus, on the one hand, science must remain in the province of experience, but, on the other, must hasten beyond it, constantly expecting confirmation, constantly expecting the reverse. Where neither confirmation nor refutation is possible, science is not concerned. Science acts and only acts in the domain of uncompleted experience.

It is utterly beyond our power to measure the changes of things by time. Quite the contrary, time is an abstraction, at which we arrive by means of the changes of things...