For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.
—Aristotle (384BCE–322BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar
Every great discovery I ever made, I gambled that the truth was there, and then I acted in faith until I could prove its existence.
—Arthur Compton (1892–1962) American Physicist
The only way to discover the limits of the possible
is to go beyond them to the impossible.
—Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) British Scientist, Science-fiction Writer
The more original a discovery, the more obvious it seems afterwards.
—Arthur Koestler (1905–83) British Writer, Journalist, Political Refugee
Man cannot remake himself without suffering, for he is both the marble and the sculptor.
—Alexis Carrel (1873–1944) American Surgeon, Biologist
No man should go through life without once experiencing healthy, even bored solitude in the wilderness, finding himself depending solely on himself and thereby learning his true and hidden strength.
—Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) American Novelist, Poet
If God exists and we are made in his image we can have real meaning, and we can have real knowledge through what he has communicated to us.
—Francis Schaeffer (1912–84) American Presbyterian Religious Leader, Theologian, Philosopher
Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive!
—Walter Scott (1771–1832) Scottish Novelist, Poet, Playwright, Lawyer
Be brave enough to live creatively. The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. You can’t get there by bus, only by hard work, risking, and by not quite knowing what you’re doing. What you’ll discover will be wonderful: yourself.
—Alan Alda (b.1936) American Actor, TV Personality, Screenwriter
It is the modest, not the presumptuous inquirer, who makes a real and safe progress in the discovery of divine truths. — He follows God in his works and in his word.
—Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke (1678–1751) English Politician, Philosopher
Discovery consists in seeing what everyone else has seen and thinking what no one else has thought.
—Unknown
The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance — it is the illusion of knowledge.
—Daniel J. Boorstin (1914–2004) American Historian, Academic, Attorney, Writer
A human being is only interesting if he’s in contact with himself. I learned you have to trust yourself, be what you are, and do what you ought to do the way you should do it. You have got to discover you, what you do, and trust it.
—Barbra Streisand (b.1942) American Musician, Actor, Songwriter
The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.
—Robertson Davies (1913–95) Canada Journalist, Playwright, Academic, Critic, Novelist
Life’s challenges are not supposed to paralyze you; they’re supposed to help you discover who you are.
—Bernice Johnson Reagon (1942–73) American Singer, Composer, Scholar, Social Activist
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
—T. S. Eliot (1888–1965) American-born British Poet, Dramatist, Literary Critic
In contemplation, if a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties. They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English Philosopher
Discovery consists of looking at the same thing as everyone else and thinking something different
—Albert Szent-Gyorgyi (1893–1986) Hungarian-American Biochemist
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 Author, Dramatist, Musician
Behold the turtle. He makes progress only when he sticks his neck out.
—James Bryant Conant (1893–1978) American Chemist, Educator
It is the individual who knows how little they know about themselves who stands the most reasonable chance of finding out something about themselves before they die.
—S. I. Hayakawa (1906–92) Canadian-born American Academic, Elected Rep, Politician
I am a part of all that I have met.
—Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–92) British Poet
No great discovery was ever made without a bold guess.
—Isaac Newton (1643–1727) English Physicist, Mathematician, Astronomer, Theologian
Being human signifies, for each one of us, belonging to a class, a society, a country, a continent and a civilization; and for us European earth-dwellers, the adventure played out in the heart of the New World signifies in the first place that it was not our world and that we bear responsibility for the crime of its destruction.
—Claude Levi-Strauss (1908–2009) French Social Anthropologist, Philosopher
You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look at fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along”. You must do the think you think you cannot do.”
—Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American First Lady, Diplomat, Humanitarian
Any life, no matter how long and complex it may be, is made up of a single moment — the moment in which a man finds out, once and for all, who he is.
—Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine Writer, Essayist, Poet
Why seek to scale Mount Everest,
Queen of the Air,
Why strive to crown that cruel crest
And deathward dare?
Said Mallory of dauntless quest
‘Because it’s there.’
—Robert W. Service (1874–1958) Scottish Poet, Author
The significant problems we face today cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.
—Plato (428 BCE–347 BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Mathematician, Educator
The friend who holds your hand and says the wrong thing is made of a dearer stuff than the one who stays away.
—Barbara Kingsolver (b.1955) American Novelist, Poet, Essayist
Great discoveries and improvements invariably involve the cooperation of many minds. I may be given credit for having blazed the trail, but when I look at the subsequent developments I feel the credit is due to others rather than to myself.
—Alexander Graham Bell (1847–1922) Scottish-born American Inventor, Engineer, Academic
Man cannot learn anything except by going from the known to the unknown.
—Claude Bernard (1813–78) French Physiologist
After reading all that has been written, and after thinking all that can be thought, on the topics of God and the soul, the man who has a right to say that he thinks at all, will find himself face to face with the conclusion that, on these topics, the most profound thought is that which can be the least easily distinguished from the most superficial sentiment.
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–49) American Poet
A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.
—James Joyce (1882–1941) Irish Novelist, Poet
There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.
—Thornton Wilder (1897–1975) American Novelist, Playwright
Learn to see, and then you’ll know that there is no end to the new worlds of our vision.
—Carlos Castaneda (1925–98) Peruvian-born American Anthropologist, Author
It takes courage to push yourself to places that you have never been before… to test your limits… to break through barriers. And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
—Anais Nin (1903–77) French-American Essayist
After all these years, I am still involved in the process of self-discovery. It’s better to explore life and make mistakes than to play it safe. Mistakes are part of the dues one pays for a full life.
—Sophia Loren (b.1934) Italian Actor
The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes, in seeing the universe with the eyes of another, of hundreds of others, in seeing the hundreds of universes that each of them sees.
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922) French Novelist
I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in finding a smoother pebble or prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.
—Isaac Newton (1643–1727) English Physicist, Mathematician, Astronomer, Theologian
All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.
—Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) Italian Astronomer, Physicist, Mathematician
A discovery is said to be an accident meeting a prepared mind.
—Albert Szent-Gyorgyi (1893–1986) Hungarian-American Biochemist
One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.
—Andre Gide (1869–1951) French Novelist
There is no harm in doubt and skepticism, for it is through these that new discoveries are made.
—Richard Feynman (1918–88) American Physicist
What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we are not able to cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves? This is the most important of all voyages of discovery, and without it, all the rest are not only useless, but disastrous…
—Thomas Merton (1915–68) French-born American Clergyman, Poet, Social Activist, Writer
Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossible before they were done.
—Louis Brandeis (1856–1941) American Justice, Lawyer