The task is not so much to see what no one yet has seen, but to think what no body yet has thought about that which everyone sees. … But life is short, and truth works far and lives long: let us speak the truth.
For the incredibly great majority of men are by their nature absolutely incapable of any but material aims; they cannot even comprehend any others. Accordingly, the pursuit of truth alone is a pursuit far too lofty and eccentric for us to expect that all or many, or indeed even a mere few, will sincerely take part in it.
My guiding star in all seriousness has been truth. Following it, I could first aspire only to my own approval, entirely averted from an age that has sunk low as regards all higher intellectual efforts, and from a national literature demoralised but for the exceptions, a literature in which the art of combining lofty words with low sentiments has reached its zenith.
All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
(Arthur Schopenhauer)
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