“But dear friend, understanding helps nothing. Understanding is a sport like any other. A very noble sport, and a very expensive one. One can squander his whole soul on it and be left a beggar. But understanding has nothing in the slightest to do with our feelings—almost as little as with our actions. It won’t save us from sadness, from disgust, or from annihilation. It leads to nothing. It’s a blind alley, so to speak. Understanding only means an end.”
- Arthur Schnitzler, The Road Into The Open, tr. R. Byers.