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Quotes

New things are always ugly.

—Willa Cather, 1921

There are truths that prove their discoverers witless.

—Karl Kraus, 1909

They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.

—Francis Bacon, 1605

Appearances are a glimpse of the obscure.

—Anaxagoras, c. 450 BC

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

—Susanne K. Langer, 1942

What one man can invent another can discover.

—Arthur Conan Doyle, 1905

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

—Marcus Tullius Cicero, 45 BC

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

—Herman Melville, 1853

True originality consists not in a new manner but in a new vision.

—Edith Wharton, 1924

The atavistic urge toward danger persists and its satisfaction is called adventure.

—John Steinbeck, 1941

How gloriously legible are the constellations of the heavens!

—Anthony Trollope, 1859

The discovery of a new dish does more for human happiness than the discovery of a star.

—Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, 1825

The unknown is the largest need of the intellect.

—Emily Dickinson, 1876