In our most trivial walks, we are constantly, though unconsciously, steering like pilots by certain well-known beacons and headlands, and if we go beyond our usual course we still carry in our minds the bearing of some neighboring cape; and not till we are completely lost, or turned round—for a man needs only to be turned round once with his eyes shut in this world to be lost—do we appreciate the vastness and strangeness of nature. Every man has to learn the points of compass again as often as be awakes, whether from sleep or any abstraction. Not till we are lost, in other words not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
Nothing is true in self-discovery unless it is true in your own experience. This is the only protection against the robot levels of the mind.
—Barry Long (1926–2003) Australian Spiritual Teacher, Writer
Man cannot learn anything except by going from the known to the unknown.
—Claude Bernard (1813–78) French Physiologist
If God exists and we are made in his image we can have real meaning, and we can have real knowledge through what he has communicated to us.
—Francis Schaeffer (1912–84) American Presbyterian Religious Leader, Theologian, Philosopher
One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.
—Andre Gide (1869–1951) French Novelist
It’s not only the most difficult thing to know one’s self, but the most inconvenient.
—Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw) (1818–85) American Humorist, Author, Lecturer
It is the individual who knows how little they know about themselves who stands the most reasonable chance of finding out something about themselves before they die.
—S. I. Hayakawa (1906–92) Canadian-born American Academic, Elected Rep, Politician
If I have made any valuable discoveries, it has been owing more to patient attention than to any other talent.
—Isaac Newton (1643–1727) English Physicist, Mathematician, Astronomer, Theologian
From error to error, one discovers the entire truth.
—Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian Psychiatrist, Psychoanalytic
People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. But the self is not something that one finds. It is something one creates.
—Thomas Szasz (1920–2012) Hungarian-American Psychiatrist, Psychoanalyst
The world is not to be put in order, the world is order incarnate. It is for us to put ourselves in unison with this order.
—Henry Miller (1891–1980) American Novelist
The process of scientific discovery is, in effect, a continual flight from wonder.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
We have what we seek. It is there all the time, and if we give it time, it will make itself known to us.
—Thomas Merton (1915–68) American Trappist Monk
A discovery is said to be an accident meeting a prepared mind.
—Albert Szent-Gyorgyi (1893–1986) Hungarian-American Biochemist
The American who first discovered Columbus made a bad discovery.
—Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–99) German Philosopher, Physicist
We discover in others what others hide from us, and we recognize in others what we hide from ourselves.
—Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues (1715–47) French Moralist, Essayist, Writer
One must know oneself. If this does not serve to discover truth, it at least serves as a rule of life and there is nothing better.
—Blaise Pascal (1623–62) French Mathematician, Physicist, Theologian
The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance—it is the illusion of knowledge.
—Daniel J. Boorstin (1914–2004) American Historian, Academic, Attorney, Writer
Any life, no matter how long and complex it may be, is made up of a single moment—the moment in which a man finds out, once and for all, who he is.
—Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine Writer, Essayist, Poet
The friend who holds your hand and says the wrong thing is made of a dearer stuff than the one who stays away.
—Barbara Kingsolver (b.1955) American Novelist, Essayist, Poet
People are usually more convinced by reasons they discovered themselves than by those found by others.
—Blaise Pascal (1623–62) French Mathematician, Physicist, Theologian
As long as anyone believes that his ideal and purpose is outside him, that it is above the clouds, in the past or in the future, he will go outside himself and seek fulfillment where it cannot be found. He will look for solutions and answers at every point except where they can be found—in himself.
—Erich Fromm (1900–80) German-American Psychoanalyst, Social Philosopher
By mutual confidence and mutual aid – great deeds are done, and great discoveries made
—Homer (751–651 BCE) Ancient Greek Poet
I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in finding a smoother pebble or prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.
—Isaac Newton (1643–1727) English Physicist, Mathematician, Astronomer, Theologian
No great discovery was ever made without a bold guess.
—Isaac Newton (1643–1727) English Physicist, Mathematician, Astronomer, Theologian
Being is. Being is in-itself. Being is what it is.
—Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–80) French Philosopher, Playwright, Novelist, Screenwriter, Political Activist
The next Augustan age will dawn on the other side of the Atlantic. There will, perhaps, be a Thucydides at Boston, a Xenophon at New York, and, in time, a Virgil at Mexico, and a Newton at Peru. At last, some curious traveler from Lima will visit England and give a description of the ruins of St Paul s, like the editions of Balbec and Palmyra.
—Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford (1717–97) English Art Historian, Man of Letters, Politician
The self is only that which it is in the process of becoming.
—Soren Kierkegaard (1813–55) Danish Philosopher, Theologian
It began in mystery, and it will end in mystery, but what a savage and beautiful country lies in between.
—Diane Ackerman (b.1948) American Poet, Essayist, Naturalist
When we seek to discover the best in others, we somehow bring out the best in ourselves.
—William Arthur Ward (1921–94) American Author