True philosophy invents nothing; it merely establishes and describes what is.
Man has to suffer. When he has no real afflictions, he invents some.
The radical of one century is the conservative of the next. The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out the conservative adopts them.
Perhaps the history of the errors of mankind, all things considered, is more valuable and interesting than that of their discoveries. Truth is uniform and narrow; it constantly exists, and does not seem to require so much an active energy, as a passive aptitude of the soul in order to encounter it. But error is endlessly diversified; it has no reality, but is the pure and simple creation of the mind that invents it. In this field the soul has room enough to expand herself, to display all her boundless faculties, and all her beautiful and interesting extravagancies and absurdities.
A detective digs around in the garbage of people's lives. A novelist invents people and then digs around in their garbage.