“My religion makes no sense
and does not help me
therefore I pursue it.”

Goldratt, E. M. (1990). What is this thing called theory of constraints and how should it be implemented? New York: North River Press. p. 28

The surface of the earth is gradually turning into one great prison camp, and soon there will be nobody left outside. … I don't fool myself about the real state of affairs, and I've even dropped the pretense that I'm out to help others. I shall merely try to help God as best I can, and if I succeed in doing that, then I shall be of use to others as well. But I mustn't have heroic illusions about that either.
11 July 1942, p. 484-85
Etty: The Letters and Diaries of Etty Hillesum, 1941-1943

How I Became A Hindu - My Discovery Of Vedic Dharma

Introduction, Sec. 4
De architectura (The Ten Books On Architecture) (~ 15BC), Book II

XIII.
Outline of the Doctrine of Knowledge (1810)
Context: I know now that I shall. But all Actual Knowledge brings with it, by its formal nature, its schematised apposition; — although I now know of the Schema of God, yet I am not yet immediately this Schema, but I am only a Schema of the Schema. The required Being is not yet realised.
I shall be. Who is this I? Evidently that which is, — the Ego gives in Intuition, the Individual. This shall be.
What does its Being signify? It is given as a Principle in the World of Sense. Blind Instinct is indeed annihilated, and in its place there now stands the clearly perceived Shall. But the Power that at first set this Instinct in motion remains, in order that the Shall my now set it (the Power) in motion, and become its higher determining Principle. By means of this Power, I shall therefore, within its sphere, — the World of Sense, — produce and make manifest that which I recognise as my true Being in the Supersensuous World.

Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right (1843)

In an interview https://80000hours.org/podcast/episodes/holden-karnofsky-open-philanthropy/ with Robert Wiblin, February 2018; also quoted by Ben Pace in "Extended Quote on the Institution of Academia" https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/nXZi8efFArfk3u568/extended-quote-on-the-institution-of-academia and by Rob Bensinger in "Karnofsky on forecasting and what science does" https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/FhmWKE77qCPWJ63Y5/karnofsky-on-forecasting-and-what-science-does
Context: I think it's somewhat of a happy coincidence so far that most breakthroughs have been good. To say, I see a breakthrough on the horizon. Is that good or bad? How can we prepare for it? That's another thing academia is really not set up to do. Academia is set up to get the breakthrough. That is a question I ask myself a lot is here's an intellectual activity. Why can't it be done in academia? These days, my answer is if it's really primarily of interest to a very cosmopolitan philanthropist trying to help the whole future, and there's no one client and it's not frontier advancing, then I think that does make it pretty plausible to me that there's no one doing it. We would love to change that, at least somewhat, by funding what we think is the most important work.

As quoted in "Kirstin Chen Ventures Out Of Singapore With Novel Set In 1950s Maoist China" in Forbes (27 April 2018) https://www.forbes.com/sites/priscaang/2018/04/27/kirstin-chen/?sh=235a75302016

The New Marvel in Photography (1896)
Context: I am not a prophet, and I am opposed to prophesying. I am pursuing my investigations, and as fast as my results are verified I shall make them public.