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Discovery Quotes

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Discovery Quotes

“The most important thing I found out from my father is that if you asked any question and pursued it deeply enough, then at the end there was a glorious discovery of a general and beautiful kind.”

Ifs Kind Important Ends Enough Beautiful Found Father Discovery Important Things Glorious Pursued

Author:Richard P. Feynman

“When America was first made known to Europe, the part assumed by France on the borders of that new world was peculiar, and is little recognized. While the Spaniard roamed sea and land, burning for achievement, red-hot with bigotry and avarice, and while England, with soberer steps and a less dazzling result, followed in the path of discovery and gold-hunting, it was from France that those barbarous shores first learned to serve the ends of peaceful commercial industry.”

Source: France and England in North America: Pioneers of France in the New World. The Jesuits of North America in the seventeenth century. La Salle and the discovery of the Great West. The old régime in Canada

“It seems to be overwhelmingly likely that there is life out there and eventually we will make contract. And when contact is made, it will be the end of Earth's cultural evolution. It will be the greatest discovery in the history of humankind.”

Made Ends Seems Earth Evolution Discovery Contact Made It Contracts Humankind

Author:Paul Horowitz

“the thing I would wish for anybody I loved would be the possibility of never coming to the end of discovery. I think it is what makes life worth living.”

Thinking Ends Would Be Wish Possibility Discovery Curiosity Worth Living Life Worth Living

Book:Joyce

Source: Joyce

“Reasoning is compared to understanding as movement is to rest, or acquisition to possession.... Since movement always proceeds from something immovable, and ends in something at rest, hence it is that human reasoning, in the order of inquiry and discovery, proceeds from certain things absolutely understood--namely, the first principles; and, again, in the order of judgment, returns by analysis to first principles, in the light of which it examines what it has found. Now it is clear that rest and movement are not to be referred to different powers, but to one and the same.”

Firsts Humans Different Ends Reason Light Certain Order Found Understanding Principles Clear Movement Return Judgment Understood Discovery Possession Analysis Reasoning Inquiry Acquisition

Author:Thomas Aquinas

“I do not much wish well to discoveries, for I am always afraid they will end in conquest and robbery.”

Wells Ends Wish Discovery Conquest Robbery

Book:The Letters of Samuel Johnson, Volume II: 1773-1776

Source: The Letters of Samuel Johnson, Volume II: 1773-1776

“The end of despots is always odd?exhilarating to those who suffered their tyrannies, and to those who hold despotism in contempt, and anti-climatic at the same time, the discovery that these tyrants were petty, frightened men after all.”

Men Ends Spring Discovery Tyranny Odd Frightened Contempt Tyrants Petty Despotism Exhilarating Despots Arab Spring

Author:Fouad Ajami

“Criticism of growth arose with the discovery that growth beyond a certain point is destructive of the earth. We are already using resources much faster than they can be replenished. We are producing wastes much faster than nature's sinks can process them. The growth economy will end. The only questions are when its end will come, and whether humanity will be able to survive its demise.”

Ends Able Earth Certain Humanity Process Growth Economy Waste Discovery Resources Criticism Environmental Faster Destructive Sustainability Demise Using Resources

Book:Sustaining the Common Good: A Christian Perspective on the Global Economy

Source: Sustaining the Common Good: A Christian Perspective on the Global Economy

“Unless all the discoveries that you make have the welfare of the poor as the end in view, all your workshops will be really no better than Satan's workshops.”

Ends Poor Views Discovery Welfare Satan Workshops

Book:Collected Works

Source: Collected Works

“As it is with spiritual discoveries and affections given at first conversion, so it is in all subsequent illuminations and affections of that kind; they are all transforming. There is a like divine power and energy in them as in the first discoveries; they still reach the bottom of the heart, and affect and alter the very nature of the soul, in proportion to the degree in which they are given. And a transformation of nature is continued and carried on by them to the end of life, until it is brought to perfection in glory.”

Source: A treatise concerning religious affections. Five discourses on important subjects

“It began in mystery, and it will end in mystery, but what a savage and beautiful country lies in between.”

Life Ends Country Beautiful Lying Mystery Discovery Vacation Savages Beautiful Country Wonder And Mystery

Book:A Natural History of the Senses

Source: A Natural History of the Senses

“Every good laboratory consists of first rate men working in great harmony to insure the progress of science; but down at the end of the hall is an unsociable, wrong-headed fellow working on unprofitable lines, and in his hands lies the hope of discovery.”

Men Firsts Ends Hands Lying Lines Progress Discovery Harmony Fellows Rate Very Good Halls Laboratory

Author:Ernest Rutherford

“The precondition for kitsch, is the availability of a fully matured cultural tradition, whose discoveries kitsch can take advantage of for its own ends. It draws its lifeblood, so to speak, from this reservoir of accumulated experience”

Ends Speak Draws Discovery Advantage Tradition Reservoirs Availability Kitsch Matured

Author:Clement Greenberg

“In regard to man's final end, all the higher religions are in complete agreement. The purpose of human life is the discovery of Truth, the unitive knowledge of the Godhead.”

Men Humans Ends Life Is Purpose Higher Discovery Regard Finals Human Life Agreement

Author:Aldous Huxley

“Walden - all his books, indeed - are packed with subtle, conflicting, and very fruitful discoveries. They are not written to prove something in the end. They are written as the Indians turn down twigs to mark their path through the forest. He cuts his way through life as if no one had ever taken that road before, leaving these signs for those who come after, should they care to see which way he went.”

Ifs Way Should Book Ends Care Turns Path Taken Cutting Written Prove Discovery Mark Leaving Forests Subtle Twigs

Book:The Essays of Virginia Woolf: 1912-1918

Source: The Essays of Virginia Woolf: 1912-1918

“The discovery of God begins at understanding that He ought to exist, and ends at knowing how He could exist.”

Ends Understanding Knowing Ought Discovery

Author:Kedar Joshi

“For me photography was the means to the end, but they made it the most important thing. (On the discovery of X-ray photography.)”

Mean Made Important Ends Photography Discovery Important Things Made It Rays

Author:Wilhelm Rontgen

“The basis of drama is... the struggle of the hero towards a specific goal at the end of which he realises that what kept him from it was, in the lesser drama, civilisation and, in the great drama, the discovery of something that he did not set out to discover but which can be seen retrospectively as inevitable.”

Ends Goal Struggle Hero Drama Discovery Bases Inevitable Realising Civilisation Specific Goals

Author:David Mamet

“The beginning and the end are never really the journey of discovery for me. It is the middle that remains a puzzle until well into the writing. That's how life is most of the time, isn't it? You know where you are and where you hope to wind up. It's the getting there that's challenging.”

Knows Writing Wells Ends Life Is Challenges Journey Middle Wind Discovery Remains Where You Are Puzzles

Author:Anna Quindlen

“It is better to travel with hope in one's heart than to arrive in safety. . . . We should celebrate today's failure because it is a clear sign that our voyage of discovery is not yet over. The day the experiment succeeds is the day the experiment ends. And I inevitably find that the sadness of ending outweighs the celebration of success.”

Should Heart Ends Today Clear Sadness Succeed Discovery Safety Experiments Celebrate Celebration Voyages Voyages Of Discovery

Author:Jacqueline Kelly

“Life is chaotic and unpredictable. If a butterfly flaps its wings in one part of the world, it could cause people at the opposite end of the globe to watch a Discovery Channel special on butterflies”

People Ifs World Ends Life Is Causes Watches Special Discovery Opposites Wings Butterfly Globes Unpredictable Chaotic

Author:Stephen Colbert

“Imagine the first discovery that one of these epidemics was man-made—the panic, the violence that would ensue. That’s where the end would come. A typhoon kills a few hundred people, does a few billion in damage, and what do we do?” Erskine interlocked his fingers. “We come together. We put the pieces back. But a terrorist’s bomb.” He frowned. “A terrorist’s bomb does the same damage, and it throws the world into turmoil.” He spread his hands apart like an explosion going off. “When there’s only God to blame, we forgive him. When it’s our fellow man, we must destroy him.”

“The realization that life is absurd and cannot be an end, but only a beginning. This is a truth nearly all great minds have taken as their starting point. It is not this discovery that is interesting, but theconsequences and rules of action drawn from it.”

Life Mind Ends Action Life Is Interesting Taken Discovery Starting Absurd Realization Starting Point Great Minds

Author:Albert Camus

“Science for me is very close to art. Scientific discovery is an irrational act. It's an intuition which turns out to be reality at the end of it-and I see no difference between a scientist developing a marvellous discovery and an artist making a painting.”

Art Ends Reality Science Artist Turns Differences Painting Discovery Scientist Intuition Developing Irrational Marvellous Scientific Discovery Discovery In Science Close Minded

Author:Carlo Rubbia

“We can no longer stand at the end of something we visualized in detail and plan backwards from that future. Instead we must stand at the beginning, clear in our mind, with a willingness to be involved in discovery... it asks that we participate rather than plan.”

Mind Ends Asks Vision Clear Plans Involved Discovery Details Willingness Backwards

Author:Margaret J. Wheatley

“You have to ask yourself the question 'Who am I?' This investigation will lead in the end to the discovery of something within you which is behind the mind. Solve that great problem and you will solve all other problems.”

Mind Ends Problem Asks Behinds Quiet Discovery Solve Within You Investigation Lead In

Author:Ramana Maharshi

“Without the suitable conditions life could not exist. But both life and its conditions set forth the operations of inscrutable Power. We know not its origin; we know not its end. And the presumption, if not the degradation, rests with those who place upon the throne of the universe a magnified image of themselves, and make its doings a mere colossal imitation of their own. Wonder was the motive that led people to philosophy ... wonder is a kind of desire in knowledge. It is the cause of delight because it carries with it the hope of discovery.”

“An ingenious compound of desirability and appearance. Discovery of truth is the sole purpose of philosophy, which is the most ancient occupation of the human mind and has a fair prospect of existing with increasing activity to the end of time.”

Source: The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World

“Our present work sets forth mathematical principles of philosophy. For the basic problem of philosophy seems to be to discover the forces of nature from the phenomena of motions and then to demonstrate the other phenomena from these forces. It is to these ends that the general propositions in books 1 and 2 are directed, while in book 3 our explanation of the system of the world illustrates these propositions.”

World Book Ends Philosophy Problem Seems Science Force Nature Principles Discovery Mathematics Mathematical Explanation Propositions Forces Of Nature

Book:Newton: Philosophical Writings

Source: Newton: Philosophical Writings

“The greatest discovery in life, the most precious treasure, is of awareness. Without it you are bound to be in darkness, full of fears. And you will go on creating new fears - there is no end to it. You will live in fear, you will die in fear, and you will never be able to taste something of freedom. And it was all the time your potential; any moment you could have claimed it, but you never claimed it.”

Ends Moments Able Dies Fear Darkness Awareness Goes On Taste Creating Discovery Bounds Treasure Discovery In Life

Author:Rajneesh

“Nothing that you do in science is guaranteed to result in benefits for mankind. Any discovery, I believe, is morally neutral and it can be turned either to constructive ends or destructive ends. That's not the fault of science.”

Believe Ends Science I Believe Results Mankind Benefits Ethics Discovery Accounts Faults Destructive Constructive

Author:Arthur William Galston

“The traditional disputes of philosophers are, for the most part, as unwarranted as they are unfruitful. The surest way to end them is to establish beyond question what should be the purpose and method of a philosophical enquiry. And this is by no means so difficult a task as the history of philosophy would lead one to suppose. For if there are any questions which science leaves it to philosophy to answer, a straightforward process of elimination must lead to their discovery.”

“While, on the one hand, the end of scientific investigation is the discovery of laws, on the other, science will have reached its highest goal when it shall have reduced ultimate laws to one or two, the necessity of which lies outside the sphere of our cognition. These ultimate laws-in the domain of physical science at least-will be the dynamical laws of the relations of matter to number, space, and time. The ultimate data will be number, matter, space, and time themselves. When these relations shall be known, all physical phenomena will be a branch of pure mathematics.”

“I start with no preconceived idea - discovery excites me to focus - then rediscovery through the lens - final form of presentation seen on ground glass, the finished print previsioned completely in every detail of texture, movement, proportion, before exposure - the shutter's release automatically and finally fixes my conception, allowing no after manipulation - the ultimate end, the print, is but a duplication of all that I saw and felt through my camera.”

Source: Edward Weston on photography

“The contemporary artist...is not bound to a fully conceived, previsioned end. His mind is kept alert to in-process discovery and a working rapport is established between the artist and his creation. While it may be true, as Nathan Lyons stated, 'The eye and the camera see more than the mind knows,' is it not also conceivable that the mind knows more than the eye and the camera can see?”

Knows Mind May Ends Eye Artist Process Creation Photography Discovery Cameras Bounds Photographer Contemporary Being True Rapport

Author:Jerry Uelsmann

“I don’t think there’s any problem with advancing consciousness and becoming more and more aware of the struggle, not with the world, not to convince other people to do anything. The really interesting think is the struggle with the self, and the relation with the self, and there is no end to the improvement that can be done there, the discoveries that can be made.”

People Thinking World Made Ends Self Done Problem Interesting Consciousness Struggle Becoming Discovery Relation Improvement Convince Really Interesting Becoming More Advancing

Author:Allen Ginsberg

“Fossil energy is the worst discovery man ever made, and his disruption of the carbon-oxygen cycle is the greatest of his triumphs over nature. Through thinner and thinner air we labor toward our last end, conquerors finally of even the earth chemistry that created us.”

Men Made Ends Earth Lasts Energy Air Worst Discovery Labor Triumph Cycles Chemistry Carbon Fossils Oxygen Disruption Conqueror

Author:Wallace Stegner

“As a writer, I write to see. If I knew how it would end, I wouldn't write. It's a process of discovery.”

Ifs Writing Ends Process Discovery

Author:John McGahern

“Please believe in THE POWER OF ONE. One person can make an enormous difference in the world. One person - actually, one idea - can start a war, or end one, or subvert an entire power structure. One discovery can cure a disease or spawn new technology to benefit or annihilate the human race. You as ONE individual can change millions of lives. Think big. Do not limit your vision and do not ever compromise your dreams or ideals.”

“Paleoanthropology is not a science that ends with the discovery of a bone. One has to have the original to work with. It is a life-long task.”

Long Ends Discovery Tasks Originals Bones Long Life

Author:Richard Leakey

“True self-discovery begins where your comfort zone ends.”

Ends Self Comfort Discovery Self Discovery Zone Comfort Zone True Self

Book:The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change

Source: The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change

“I do have a dominant shopping gene but, unlike a reasonable person, I never plan for what I need each season. I enjoy the thrill of the hunt, the discovery and the endless search. In another creation I was, perhaps, a hunter/gatherer. After all these years, I’ve learned that it’s not the end result or finished product but the process I most enjoy. If my experimenting, searching and juxtaposing turns into an exciting outfit well, it’s just a big fat bonus!”

“The United States, and other advanced nations, will someday be able to produce instruments of death so terrible the world will be in abject terror of itself and its ability to end civilization.... Such war-making weapons should be developed - but only for purposes of discovery and experimentation”

World Should War Ends States Motivational Able Purpose Nations Ability United United States Produce Terrible Civilization Weapons Discovery Instruments Terror Someday Experimentation

Author:Thomas A. Edison

“The characters in my novels are my own unrealized possibilities. That is why I am equally fond of them all and equally horrified by them. Each one has crossed a border that I myself have circumvented. It is that crossed border (the border beyond which my own "I" ends) which attracts me most. For beyond that border begins the secret the novel asks about. This novel is not the author's confession; it is an investigation of human life in the trap the world has become.”

World Humans Ends Character Asks My Own Secret Courage Novel Possibility Discovery Human Life Borders Confession Investigation Traps

Author:Milan Kundera

“Writing is always a process of discovery—I never know the end, or even the events on the next page, until they happen. There’s a constant interplay between the imagining and shaping of the story.”

Knows Writing Ends Stories Happens Next Process Events Pages Discovery Constant

Author:Kim Edwards

“Tedious as it may appear to some to dwell on the discovery of odds and ends that have, no doubt, been thrown away by the owner as rubbish ... yet it is by the study of such trivial details that Archaeology is mainly dependent for determining the date of earthworks. ... Next to coins fragments of pottery afford the most reliable of all evidence.”

May Ends Next Study Doubt Evidence Discovery Details No Doubt Dependent Thrown Owners Odds Coins Fragments Tedious Rubbish Archaeology Pottery Odds And Ends

Author:Augustus Pitt Rivers

“The examen is a form of personal inventory. At day’s end, spend time in prayerful reflection on your day: your comings and goings, routines and disruptions, work and play, discoveries and disappointments. Think about who you met, or missed. Think about your moments of aloneness. In all, ask two questions: when was I most alive, most present, most filled and fulfilled today? And when was I most taxed, stressed, distracted, depleted today? A simpler, and more spiritually focused, version of those questions: when did I feel closest to God, and when farthest?”

“When you begin a picture you often make some pretty discoveries. You must be on guard against these. Destroy the thing, do it over several times. In each destroying of a beautiful discovery, the artist does not really suppress it, but rather condenses it, makes it more substantial. What comes out in the end is the result of discarded finds. Otherwise you become your own connoisseur.”

Doe Ends Beautiful Artist Results Discovery Destroying Discarded Connoisseur

Book:Picasso on art: a selection of views

Source: Picasso on art: a selection of views