The undiscovered country form whose born no traveler returns.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
It is the modest, not the presumptuous inquirer, who makes a real and safe progress in the discovery of divine truths.—He follows God in his works and in his word.
—Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke (1678–1751) English Politician, Philosopher
Just as all thought, and primarily that of non-signification, signifies something, so there is no art that has no signification.
—Albert Camus (1913–60) Algerian-born French Philosopher, Dramatist, Essayist, Novelist, Author
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
Learn to see, and then you’ll know that there is no end to the new worlds of our vision.
—Carlos Castaneda (1925–98) Peruvian-born American Anthropologist, Author
The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance—it is the illusion of knowledge.
—Daniel J. Boorstin (1914–2004) American Historian, Academic, Attorney, Writer
The process of scientific discovery is, in effect, a continual flight from wonder.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory mentioned, which states that this has already happened.
—Douglas Adams (1952–2001) English Novelist, Scriptwriter
Those who talk on the razor-edge of double-meanings pluck the rarest blooms from the precipice on either side.
—Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946) American-British Essayist, Bibliophile
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
—T. S. Eliot (1888–1965) American-born British Poet, Dramatist, Literary Critic
The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder.
—Ralph Washington Sockman (1889–1970) American United Methodist Pastor
The more original a discovery, the more obvious it seems afterwards.
—Arthur Koestler (1905–83) British Writer, Journalist, Political Refugee
No great discovery was ever made without a bold guess.
—Isaac Newton (1643–1727) English Physicist, Mathematician, Astronomer, Theologian
One of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his great surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn’t do.
—Henry Ford (1863–1947) American Businessperson, Engineer
You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.
—Plato (428 BCE–347 BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Mathematician, Educator
After all these years, I am still involved in the process of self-discovery. It’s better to explore life and make mistakes than to play it safe. Mistakes are part of the dues one pays for a full life.
—Sophia Loren (b.1934) Italian Actor
The significant problems we face today cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
Darkness within darkness. The gateway to all understanding.
—Laozi (fl.6th Century BCE) Chinese Philosopher, Sage
What has become clear to you since we last met?
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
The self is only that which it is in the process of becoming.
—Soren Kierkegaard (1813–55) Danish Philosopher, Theologian
If we make a couple of discoveries here and there we need not believe things will go on like this for ever. Just as we hit water when we dig in the earth, so we discover the incomprehensible sooner or later.
—Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–99) German Philosopher, Physicist
What Des-Cartes did was a good step. You have added much several ways, & especially in taking ye colours of thin plates into philosophical consideration. If I have seen further it is by standing on ye shoulders of Giants.
—Isaac Newton (1643–1727) English Physicist, Mathematician, Astronomer, Theologian
Discovery consists in seeing what everyone else has seen and thinking what no one else has thought.
—Unknown
Being is. Being is in-itself. Being is what it is.
—Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–80) French Philosopher, Playwright, Novelist, Screenwriter, Political Activist
The deeper the experience of an absence of meaning—in other words, of absurdity—the more energetically meaning is sought.
—Vaclav Havel (1936–2011) Czech Dramatist, Statesman
No man should go through life without once experiencing healthy, even bored solitude in the wilderness, finding himself depending solely on himself and thereby learning his true and hidden strength.
—Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) American Novelist, Poet
There comes a time in the seeker’s life when he discovers that he is at once the lover and the beloved. The aspiring soul which he embodies is the lover in him. And the transcendental Self which he reveals from within is his Beloved.
—Sri Chinmoy (1931–2007) Indian Yoga Teacher
If a man knew anything, he would sit in a corner and be modest; but he is such an ignorant peacock, that he goes bustling up and down, and hits on extraordinary discoveries.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
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
Behold the turtle. He makes progress only when he sticks his neck out.
—James Bryant Conant (1893–1978) American Chemist, Educator
Leave the beaten track occasionally and dive into the woods. Every time you do so you will be certain to find something that you have never seen before. Follow it up, explore all around it, and before you know it, you will have something worth thinking about to occupy your mind. All really big discoveries are the results of thought.
—Alexander Graham Bell (1847–1922) Scottish-born American Inventor, Engineer, Academic
I have made an important discovery… that alcohol, taken in sufficient quantities, produces all the effect of intoxication.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
Man cannot learn anything except by going from the known to the unknown.
—Claude Bernard (1813–78) French Physiologist
Everything changes, nothing remains without change.
—Buddhist Teaching
Eternal truths will be neither true nor eternal unless they have fresh meaning for every new social situation.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) American Head of State, Lawyer
In contemplation, if a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties. They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English Philosopher
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
By mutual confidence and mutual aid – great deeds are done, and great discoveries made
—Homer (751–651 BCE) Ancient Greek Poet
Little by little, through patience and repeated effort, the mind will become stilled in the Self.
—The Bhagavad Gita Hindu Scripture
If you are prepared to accept the consequences of your dreams then you must still regard America today with the same naive enthusiasm as the generations that discovered the New World.
—Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007) French Sociologist, Philosopher
For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.
—Aristotle (384BCE–322BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar
You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look at fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along”. You must do the think you think you cannot do.”
—Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American First Lady, Diplomat, Humanitarian
Great discoveries and improvements invariably involve the cooperation of many minds. I may be given credit for having blazed the trail, but when I look at the subsequent developments I feel the credit is due to others rather than to myself.
—Alexander Graham Bell (1847–1922) Scottish-born American Inventor, Engineer, Academic
Every great discovery I ever made, I gambled that the truth was there, and then I acted in faith until I could prove its existence.
—Arthur Compton (1892–1962) American Physicist
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
Discovery consists of looking at the same thing as everyone else and thinking something different
—Albert Szent-Gyorgyi (1893–1986) Hungarian-American Biochemist
Being human signifies, for each one of us, belonging to a class, a society, a country, a continent and a civilization; and for us European earth-dwellers, the adventure played out in the heart of the New World signifies in the first place that it was not our world and that we bear responsibility for the crime of its destruction.
—Claude Levi-Strauss (1908–2009) French Social Anthropologist, Philosopher
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
No one has ever learned fully to know themselves.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossible before they were done.
—Louis Brandeis (1856–1941) American Jurist