De omnibus dubitandum, taught Descartes - doubt all things. Easily said - but how to do it? Try, for example to doubt that the laws of nature are alw… - Lev Shestov

Pascal feared novelty above all things. All the strength of his restless, yet profound and concentrated mind, was applied to resisting the current of history, preventing himself from being carried forward by it. Is it possible, is it reasonable to fight against history? Of what interest to us can a man be, who tries to make time run backwards? p. 274

Spinoza taught, and his commandments were received as a new revelation. And no one noticed (men prefer not to notice) that Spinoza himself acted, both as man and philosopher, in the diametrically opposite way. He asked no questions which he did not need, and found no answers which did not concern him. p. 159

One word more on Hegel. In his "logic" he gives this commandment to the philosopher: Thou shalt free thyself from all that is personal, raise thyself above all that is individual, if thou wouldst be a philosopher. Hegel held himself for a philosopher; does this mean that he obeyed his own commandment; that if, let us say, he had lived in our day, he would "quietly" have accepted all the misfortune which overwhelmed his fatherland? One could take twice and thrice as many striking examples to show how hard - indeed, how impossible - it is to test the sincerity and conscientiousness of the utterance even of philosophers who are justly esteemed as vessels of philosophic thought. p.180