“I believe that academics do not flow naturally with this world, since, many times, the Academy, from those all-knowing egos, which are not lacking, turns the literary into a mere object lacking spirit.”

Maxim 236
Sentences

Source Book in Ancient Philosophy (1907), The Golden Sayings of Democritus

Source: Attributed in posthumous publications, Einstein and the Poet (1983), p. 109

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XXV: On Reformation

Excerpt from speech at Life Skills workshop, Valelevu Grounds, 22 May 2005

Source: The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (1988), Ch. 14
Context: What was the Sherlock Holmes principle? 'Once you have discounted the impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.'
I reject that entirely. The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it which the merely improbable lacks. How often have you been presented with an apparently rational explanation of something that works in all respects other than one, which is just that it is hopelessly improbable? Your instinct is to say 'Yes, but he or she simply wouldn't do that.

1930s, On my Painting (1938)

The Alexiad, Preface

Source: Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life