The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. Show less «

[epitaph in his gravestone]: I am Providence.

From even the greatest of horrors, irony is seldom absent.

[1921] It is easy to remove the mind from harping on the lost illusion of immortality. The disciplined intellect fears nothing and craves no sugar-plum at the day's end, but is content to accept life and serve society as best it may. Personally I would not care for immortality in the least. There is nothing better than oblivion, since in oblivion there is no wish unfulfilled. We had it before we were born, yet did not complain. Shall we whine because we know it will return? It is Elysium enough for me, at any rate. Show less «

The world is indeed comic, but the joke is on mankind.

The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown. Show less «

I shall never be very merry or very sad, for I am more prone to analyze than to feel.