Scientific discoveryand scientific knowledge have been achieved only by those who have gone in pursuit of them without any practical purpose whatsoever in view.

-Planck, Max Karl Ernst
  Where is Science Going? pt.4 (translated byJames Murphy).

‚Ah s |¤ , ponerse a escribir otra vez, que¤   vomitivo! ‚Como si todo esto sirviera para algo, como si todo esto fuera a entrar en alguna cabezota, a entretener a alguno de los lectores babosos, ovillados en sus poltronas, frente al sopo¤ n  sopor|¤fero de cada d|¤a! Ah yes, going back to writing, how disgusting! As if all this had some purpose, as if all this would penetrate somethick skull, amusesome drivelling readercurledup in his armchair before the soporific stew of every day!

-Sappho   7c
  De donde son los cantantes (translated as From Cuba with a Song,1972),'La Dolores Rondo¤   n'.

Unsterblichkeit der Individualit a« t verlangen heiÞt eigentlich einen Irrtum ins Unendliche perpetuieren wollen. Denn im Grunde ist doch jede Individualit a« t nur ein spezieller Irrtum, Fehltritt, etwas, das besser nicht w a« re, ja wovon uns zuru«  ckzubringen der eigentliche Zweck des Lebens ist. To desire immortality for theindividual isreally thesame as wanting to perpetuate an error for ever; for at bottom every individuality is really only a special error, a false step, something that it would be better should not be, in fact something from which it isthe real purpose of life to bring us back.

-Schopenhauer, Arthur
  DieWelt alsWille undVorstellung (TheWorld asWill and Representation), vol.2, ch.41 (translated by E F J Payne).

Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production.

-Smith, Adam
  An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of theWealth of Nations, bk.4, ch.8.

Yet I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs, And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns.

-Tennyson
  Poems,'Locksley Hall', l.137^8.