Appearances are a glimpse of the obscure.
—Anaxagoras, c. 450 BCQuotes
The discovery of a new dish does more for human happiness than the discovery of a star.
—Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, 1825What one man can invent another can discover.
—Arthur Conan Doyle, 1905Nature has planted in our minds an insatiable desire to seek the truth.
—Marcus Tullius Cicero, 45 BCA man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.
—James Joyce, 1922One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.
—André Gide, 1926Most new discoveries are suddenly-seen things that were always there.
—Susanne K. Langer, 1942Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose.
—Zora Neale Hurston, 1942Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.
—Arthur Schopenhauer, 1851When they shout “Long live progress,” always ask, “Progress of what?”
—Stanisław Jerzy Lec, 1957How gloriously legible are the constellations of the heavens!
—Anthony Trollope, 1859New things are always ugly.
—Willa Cather, 1921I learned to make my mind large, as the universe is large, so that there is room for paradoxes.
—Maxine Hong Kingston, 1976