e Greeks had for many things!
Only they committed the mistake of being over-hasty, of passing
straightway from the phenomenon to the explanation of it, and thereby
produced certain theories that are quite inadequate. But this is the
mistake of all times, and still made in our own day.

560

Hypotheses are cradle-songs by which the teacher lulls his scholars to
sleep. The thoughtful and honest observer is always learning more and
more of his limitations; he sees that the further knowledge spreads, the
more numerous are the problems that make their appearance.

561

Our mistake is that we doubt what is certain and want to establish what
is uncertain. My maxim in the study of Nature is this: hold fast what is
certain and keep a watch on what is uncertain.

562

What a master a man would be in his own subject if he taught nothing
useless!

563

The greatest piece of folly is that every man thinks himself compelled
to hand down what people think they have known.

564

If many a man did not feel obliged to repeat what is untrue, because he
has said it once, the world would have been quite different.

565

Every man looks at the world lying ready before him, ordered and
fashioned into a complete whole, as after all but an element out of
which his endeavour is to create a special world suited to himself.
Capable men lay hold of the world without hesitation and try to shape
their course as best they can; others dally over it, and some doubt even
of their own existence.

The man who felt the full force of this fundamental truth would dispute
with no one, but look upon another's mode of thought equally with his
own, as merely a phenomenon. For we find almost daily that one man can
think with ease what another cannot possibly think at all; and that,
too, not in matters which might have some sort of effect upon their
common weal or woe, but in things which cannot touch them at all.

566

There is nothing more odious than the majority; it consists of a few
powerful men to lead the way; of accommodating rascals and submissive
weaklings; and of a mass of men who trot after them, without in the
least knowing their own mind.

567

When I observe the luminous progress and expansion of natural science in
modern times, I seem to myself like a traveller going eastwards at dawn,
and gazing at the growing light with joy, but also with impatience;
looking forward with longing to the advent of the full and final light,