Mystery magnifies danger, as a fog the sun; the hand that warned Belshazzar derived its horrifying influence from the want of a body.
—Charles Caleb Colton (c.1780–1832) English Clergyman, Aphorist
It is the dim haze of mystery that adds enchantment to pursuit.
—Antoine de Rivarol (1753–1801) French Writer, Epigrammatist
The world is incomprehensible. We won’t ever understand it; we won’t ever unravel its secrets. Thus we must treat the world as it is: a sheer mystery.
—Carlos Castaneda (1925–98) Peruvian-born American Anthropologist, Author
Like a morning dream, life becomes more and more bright the longer we live, and the reason of everything appears more clear. What has puzzled us before seems less mysterious, and the crooked paths look straighter as we approach the end.
—Jean Paul (1763–1825) German Novelist, Humorist
We injure mysteries, which are matters of faith, by any attempt at explanation, in order to make them matters of reason. Could they be explained, they would cease to be mysteries; and it has been well said that a thing is not necessarily against reason, because it happens to be above it.
—Charles Caleb Colton (c.1780–1832) English Clergyman, Aphorist
You ask what is the use of classification, arrangement, systemization? I answer you: order and simplification are the first steps toward the mastery of a subject-the actual enemy is the unknown.
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955) German Novelist, Short Story Writer, Social Critic, Philanthropist, Essayist
Mystery is not profoundness.
—Charles Caleb Colton (c.1780–1832) English Clergyman, Aphorist
It is the unknown that excites the ardor of scholars, who, in the known alone, would shrivel up with boredom.
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American Poet
It was the experience of mystery – even if mixed with fear – that engendered religion.
—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
To make anything very terrible, obscurity seems, in general, to be necessary.—When we know the full extent of any danger, and can accustom our eyes to it, a great deal of the apprehension vanishes.
—Edmund Burke (1729–97) British Philosopher, Statesman
The mysterious is always attractive. People will always follow a vail.
—Bede Jarrett (1881–1934) English Dominican Friar
There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
What am I, Life? A thing of watery salt held in cohesion by unresting cells. Which work they know not why, which never halt, myself unwitting where their Master dwells?
—John Masefield (1878–1967) English Poet, Novelist, Playwright
A mystery is something of which we know that it is, though we do not know how it is.
—Joseph Cook
The answer is never the answer. What’s really interesting is the mystery. If you seek the mystery instead of the answer, you’ll always be seeking. I’ve never seen anybody really find the answer—they think they have, so they stop thinking. But the job is to seek mystery, evoke mystery, plant a garden in which strange plants grow and mysteries bloom. The need for mystery is greater than the need for an answer.
—Ken Kesey (1935–2001) American Novelist, Essayist, Short Story Writer
Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of Nature. And it is because in the last analysis we ourselves are part of the mystery we are trying to solve.
—Max Planck (1858–1947) German Theoretical Physicist
A proper secrecy is the only mystery of able men; mystery is the only secrecy of weak and cunning ones.
—Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) English Statesman, Man of Letters
The most effective way to live is as a warrior. A warrior may worry and think before making any decision, but once he makes it, he goes his way, free from worries or thoughts; there will be a million other decisions still awaiting him. That’s the warrior’s way.
—Carlos Castaneda (1925–98) Peruvian-born American Anthropologist, Author
We need the tonic of wildness…At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed. … To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms—this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I belong in the ranks of devoutly religious men.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
Each particle of matter is an immensity; each leaf a world; each insect an inexplicable compendium.
—Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741–1801) Swiss Theologian, Poet
A religion without mystery must be a religion without God.
—Jeremy Taylor
As I make my slow pilgrimage through the world, a certain sense of beautiful mystery seems to gather and grow.
—A. C. Benson (1862–1925) English Essayist, Poet, Academic
Where there is mystery, it is generally suspected there must also be evil.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.
—Carl Sagan (1934–96) American Astronomer
What happens to the hole when the cheese is gone?
—Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) German Poet, Playwright, Theater Personality
The fundament upon which all our knowledge and learning rests is the inexplicable.
—Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German Philosopher
Secrecy is the element of all goodness; even virtue, even beauty is mysterious.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
Mystery has its own mysteries, and there are gods above gods. We have ours, they have theirs. That is what’s known as infinity.
—Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French Poet, Playwright, Film Director
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