A thought only really lives until it has reached the boundary line of
words; it then becomes petrified and dies immediately; yet it is as
everlasting as the fossilised animals and plants of former ages. Its
existence, which is really momentary, may be compared to a crystal the
instant it becomes crystallised.

As soon as a thought has found words it no longer exists in us or is
serious in its deepest sense.

When it begins to exist for others it ceases to live in us; just as a
child frees itself from its mother when it comes into existence. The
poet has also said:

"Ihr m�sst mich nicht durch Widerspruch verwirren!
_Sobald man spricht, beginnt man schon zu irren_."

The pen is to thought what the stick is to walking, but one walks most
easily without a stick, and thinks most perfectly when no pen is at
hand. It is only when a man begins to get old that he likes to make use
of a stick and his pen.

A hypothesis that has once gained a position in the mind, or been born
in it, leads a life resembling that of an organism, in so far as it
receives from the outer world matter only that is advantageous and
homogeneous to it; on the other hand, matter that is harmful and
heterogeneous to it is either rejected, or if it must be received, cast
off again entirely.

Abstract and indefinite terms should be employed in satire only as they