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-British Poet, Dramatist, Literary Critic
From error to error, one discovers the entire truth.
—Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian Psychiatrist, Psychoanalytic
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
When we seek to discover the best in others, we somehow bring out the best in ourselves.
—William Arthur Ward (1921–94) American Author
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
A discovery is said to be an accident meeting a prepared mind.
—Albert Szent-Gyorgyi (1893–1986) Hungarian-American Biochemist
Sometimes it is more important to discover what one cannot do, than what one can.
—Lin Yutang (1895–1976) Chinese Author, Philologist
Life’s challenges are not supposed to paralyze you; they’re supposed to help you discover who you are.
—Bernice Johnson Reagon (b.1942) American Singer, Composer, Activist
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
It takes courage to push yourself to places that you have never been before… to test your limits… to break through barriers. And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
—Anais Nin (1903–77) French-American Essayist
It’s better to be prepared for an opportunity and not have one than to have an opportunity and not be prepared.
—Whitney Young (1921–71) American Civil Rights Leader
After reading all that has been written, and after thinking all that can be thought, on the topics of God and the soul, the man who has a right to say that he thinks at all, will find himself face to face with the conclusion that, on these topics, the most profound thought is that which can be the least easily distinguished from the most superficial sentiment.
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–49) American Poet
A weed is a plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
The greatest explorer on this earth never takes voyages as long as those of the man who descends to the depth of his heart.
—Julien Green (1900–98) American Novelist
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 is no harm in doubt and skepticism, for it is through these that new discoveries are made.
—Richard Feynman (1918–88) American Physicist
Man cannot remake himself without suffering, for he is both the marble and the sculptor.
—Alexis Carrel (1873–1944) American Surgeon, Biologist
There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one’s self.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
In wisdom gathered over time I have found that every experience is a form of exploration.
—Ansel Adams (1902–84) American Photographer
What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we are not able to cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves? This is the most important of all voyages of discovery, and without it, all the rest are not only useless, but disastrous…
—Thomas Merton (1915–68) American Trappist Monk
By mutual confidence and mutual aid – great deeds are done, and great discoveries made
—Homer (751–651 BCE) Ancient Greek Poet
For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.
—Aristotle (384BCE–322BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar
As person abandons worn-out clothes and acquires new ones, so when the body is worn out a new one is acquired by the Self, who lives within.
—The Bhagavad Gita Hindu Scripture
People are usually more convinced by reasons they discovered themselves than by those found by others.
—Blaise Pascal (1623–62) French Mathematician, Physicist, Theologian
Dare to err and to dream. Deep meaning often lies in childish plays.
—Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805) German Poet, Dramatist
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
A new principle is an inexhaustible source of new views.
—Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues (1715–47) French Moralist, Essayist, Writer
Life has to be given a meaning because of the obvious fact that it has no meaning.
—Henry Miller (1891–1980) American Novelist
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, Novelist
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