If, while hurrying ostensibly to the temple of truth, we hand the reins over to our personal interests which look aside at very different guiding stars, for instance at the tastes and foibles of our contemporaries, at the established religion, but in particular at the hints and suggestions of those at the head of affairs, then how shall we ever reach the high, precipitous, bare rock whereon stands the temple of truth?
"Parerga and Paralipomena: Short Philosophical Essays, Volume 1 (Sketch of a History of the Doctrine of the Ideal and the Real)". Book by Arthur Schopenhauer translated by E. Payne, 1974.
