“Small causes can often have large effects. Smaller causes can have even bigger effects, and the very biggest effects frequently have no cause at all. Witness, for example, the world. It was created out of nothing, and that has made it the worst calamity the world has ever seen.”

“I have a rule of thumb, one that will often enough rescue from one miserable situation only to plunge me into the next one. That is why to this day I have never made it as a general, a company executive, a cardinal, or a university professor, but only enjoy my status as a jester at my own private court and as a chronicler of the applied recollections of Vigoleis. This life-sustaining maxim of mine is as follows: in case of doubt, let truth be told.”

“Happiness is an art mastered by the very few. Genuinely happy people are as rare as Christians who believe in God.”

“Talkativeness is a symptom of deep-seated pessimism. Without it there would be no pessimistic literature.”

“The fourfold root of the principle of sufficent reason is "Anything perceived has a cause. All conclusions have premises. All effects have causes. All actions have motives.”

“But circumstances change. Small causes lead to large effects. New paths are added. And all anyone can do . . . is choose.”

“If goodness has causes, it is not goodness; if it has effects, a reward, it is not goodness either. So goodness is outside the chain of cause and effect.”