There is no harm in doubt and skepticism, for it is through these that new discoveries are made.
—Richard Feynman (1918–88) American Physicist
How could drops of water know themselves to be a river? Yet the river flows on.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1900–44) French Novelist, Aviator
For a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American Novelist
There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.
—Thornton Wilder (1897–1975) American Novelist, Playwright
Darkness within darkness. The gateway to all understanding.
—Laozi (fl.6th Century BCE) Chinese Philosopher, Sage
The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery.
—Mark Van Doren (1894–1972) American Poet, Writer, Critic
No one has ever learned fully to know themselves.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
If scientific discovery has not been an unalloyed blessing, if it has conferred on mankind the power not only to create but also to annihilate, it has at the same time provided humanity with a supreme challenge and a supreme testing.
—John F. Kennedy (1917–63) American Head of State, Journalist
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 remake himself without suffering, for he is both the marble and the sculptor.
—Alexis Carrel (1873–1944) American Surgeon, Biologist
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
Discovery consists of looking at the same thing as everyone else and thinking something different.
—Albert Szent-Gyorgyi (1893–1986) Hungarian-American Biochemist
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
Be brave enough to live creatively. The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. You can’t get there by bus, only by hard work, risking, and by not quite knowing what you’re doing. What you’ll discover will be wonderful: yourself.
—Alan Alda (b.1936) American Actor, TV Personality, Screenwriter
Sometimes the best way to figure out who you are is to get to that place where you don’t have to be anything else.
—Unknown
All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.
—Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) Italian Astronomer, Physicist, Mathematician
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
Everything changes, nothing remains without change.
—Buddhist Teaching
The undiscovered country form whose born no traveler returns.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
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
From error to error, one discovers the entire truth.
—Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian Psychiatrist, Psychoanalytic
Look into the depths of your own soul and learn first to know yourself, then you will understand why this illness was bound to come upon you and perhaps you will thenceforth avoid falling ill.
—Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian Psychiatrist, Psychoanalytic
People are usually more convinced by reasons they discovered themselves than by those found by others.
—Blaise Pascal (1623–62) French Mathematician, Physicist, Theologian
Decisive inventions and discoveries always are initiated by an intellectual or moral stimulus as their actual motivating force, but, usually, the final impetus to human action is given by material impulses … merchants stood as a driving force behind the heroes of the age of discovery; this first heroic impulse to conquer the world emanated from very mortal forces.
—Stefan Zweig (1881–1942) Austrian-British Novelist, Journalist, Biographer
Man’s “progress” is but a gradual discovery that his questions have no meaning.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1900–44) French Novelist, Aviator
Who in the world am I?. Ah, that’s the great puzzle.
—Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) (1832–98) British Author, Mathematician, Clergyman, Logician
Little by little, through patience and repeated effort, the mind will become stilled in the Self.
—The Bhagavad Gita Hindu Scripture
The pious ones of Plymouth who, reaching the Rock, first fell upon their own knees and then upon the aborigines.
—William M. Evarts (1818–1901) American Lawyer, Statesman
Somehow we learn who we really are and then live with that decision.
—Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American First Lady, Diplomat, Humanitarian
Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive!
—Walter Scott (1771–1832) Scottish Novelist, Poet, Playwright, Lawyer
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