“Pride makes us long for a solution to things – a solution, a purpose, a final cause; but the better telescopes become, the more stars appear.”

Source: The Expanse, Tiamat's Wrath (2019), Chapter 34 (p. 359)

As quoted in The Unknown Patton (1983) by Charles M. Province, p. 165

Introductory
The Grammar of Science (1900)

Liquidation (2003)
Context: Thereafter, the scenes had succeeded one another, turn and turn about, in the drama as in reality, to the point that, in the end, Kingbitter did not know what to admire more: the author's-his dead friend's-crystal-clear foresight or his own, so to say, remorseful determination to identify with his prescribed role and stick to the story.
Nowadays, though, with the lapse of nine years, Kingbitter was interested in something else. His story had reached an end, but he himself was still here, posing a problem for which he more and more put off finding a solution. He would either have to carry on his story, which had proved impossible, or else start a new story, which had proved equally impossible. Kingbitter undoubtedly could see solutions to hand, both better ones and worse; indeed, if he reflected more deeply, solutions were all he could see, rather than lives.

Source: On Writing Well (Fifth Edition, orig. pub. 1976), Chapter 21, A Writers Decisions: Organizing a Long Article, p. 254.

p.5.

Speech at the Wannsee Conference, Berlin, (20 January 1942), as quoted in Why Did the Heavens Not Darken : The "Final Solution (1990) by A. J. Mayer, p. 304