Archive

Quotes

A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.

—James Joyce, 1922

I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas and land on barbarous coasts.

—Herman Melville, 1853

New things are always ugly.

—Willa Cather, 1921

Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.

—Arthur Schopenhauer, 1851

When they shout “Long live progress,” always ask, “Progress of what?”

—Stanisław Jerzy Lec, 1957

Most new discoveries are suddenly-seen things that were always there.

—Susanne K. Langer, 1942

The unknown is the largest need of the intellect.

—Emily Dickinson, 1876

Appearances are a glimpse of the obscure.

—Anaxagoras, c. 450 BC

How gloriously legible are the constellations of the heavens!

—Anthony Trollope, 1859

One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak.

—G.K. Chesterton, 1911

Nature has planted in our minds an insatiable desire to seek the truth.

—Marcus Tullius Cicero, 45 BC

Science is a cemetery of dead ideas.

—Miguel de Unamuno, 1913

What one man can invent another can discover.

—Arthur Conan Doyle, 1905