Discovery Quotes

• One of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his great surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn't do.

  Henry Ford

  Inspirational, Life, Education

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• Time is the best appraiser of scientific work, and I am aware that an industrial discovery rarely produces all its fruit in the hands of its first inventor.

  Louis Pasteur

  Hands, Fruit, Firsts

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• Learning how to be kind to ourselves, learning how to respect ourselves, is important. The reason it's important is that, fundamentally, when we look into our own hearts and begin to discover what is confused and what is brilliant, what is bitter and what is sweet, it isn't just ourselves that we're discovering. We're discovering the universe.

  Pema Chodron

  Inspirational, Life, Spiritual

  Pema Chodron (2000). “When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times”, p.98, Shambhala Publications

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• What is there that confers the noblest delight? What is that which swells a man's breast with pride above that which any other experience can bring to him? Discovery!

  Mark Twain

  Pride, Men, Delight

  Mark Twain (2008). “The Innocents Abroad”, p.266, Velvet Element Books

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• The greatest discoveries are those that shed light unto ourselves.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Light, Shed, Self Discovery

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  Great discoveries and improvements invariably involve the cooperation of many minds.

  Alexander Graham Bell

  Business, Mind, Collaboration

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• My experience of ships is that on them one makes an interesting discovery about the world. One finds one can do without it completely.

  Malcolm Bradbury

  Interesting, World, Ships

  Malcolm Bradbury (2012). “Stepping Westward”, p.50, Pan Macmillan

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• Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.

  Carl Jung

  Inspirational, Life, Beautiful

  Carl Gustav Jung (1973). “Letters”

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• One of the advantages of being disorganized is the joy of discovery.

  A. A. Milne

  Joy, Piglet, Cute Winnie The Pooh

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• A theory can be proved by experiment; but no path leads from experiment to the birth of a theory.

  Albert Einstein

  Science, Path, Birth

  The Sunday Times 18 July 1976

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• The philosopher of science is not much interested in the thought processes which lead to scientific discoveries; he looks for a logical analysis of the completed theory, including the establishing its validity. That is, he is not interested in the context of discovery, but in the context of justification.

  Hans Reichenbach

  Philosophy, Science, Analysis

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  You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover is yourself.

  Alan Alda

  Inspirational, Motivational, Change

  Alan Alda's commencement speech at Connecticut College in New London, www.graduationwisdom.com. 1980.

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• If there wasn't anything to find out, it would be dull. Even trying to find out and not finding out is just as interesting as trying to find out and finding out; and I don't know but more so.

  Mark Twain

  Interesting, Trying, Would Be

  Mark Twain (2001). “How Nancy Jackson Married Kate Wilson and Other Tales of Rebellious Girls & Daring Young Women”, p.194, U of Nebraska Press

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• In our case, finding a Lucy is unique. No one will ever find another Lucy. You can't order one from a biological supply house. It's a unique discovery, a unique specimen.

  Donald Johanson

  Unique, Finding The One, Order

  "The Quest for Human Origins". The Academy of Achievement Interview, www.achievement.org. January 25, 1991.

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• We must expect the discovery of many as yet unknown elements-for example, elements analogous to aluminum and silicon- whose atomic weight would be between 65 and 75.

  Dmitri Mendeleev

  Example, Would Be, Elements

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• The American experience stirred mankind from discovery to exploration. From the cautious quest for what they knew (or thought they knew) was out there, into an enthusiastic reaching to the unknown. These are two substantially different kinds of human enterprise.

  Daniel J. Boorstin

  Two, Different, Quests

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• If you are prepared to accept the consequences of your dreams then you must still regard America today with the same naive enthusiasm as the generations that discovered the New World.

  Jean Baudrillard

  Dream, America, Generations

  Jean Baudrillard (1989). “America”, p.98, Verso

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• Very often I'll find out at the end of a book what I put in at the beginning. A sort of process of elimination and discovery in one.

  Jonathan Carroll

  Book, Elimination, Ends

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• Decisive inventions and discoveries always are initiated by an intellectual or moral stimulus as their actual motivating force, but, usually, the final impetus to human action is given by material impulses ... merchants stood as a driving force behind the heroes of the age of discovery; this first heroic impulse to conquer the world emanated from very mortal forces

  Stefan Zweig

  Hero, Conquer The World, Intellectual

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• Even before the discovery of copper South Australia had turned the corner.

  Catherine Helen Spence

  Australia, Copper, South

  Catherine Helen Spence, Susan Magarey, Maryan Beams (2005). “Ever Yours, C.H. Spence: Catherine Helen Spence's An Autobiography (1825-1910), Diary (1894) and Some Correspondence (1894-1910)”, p.49, Wakefield Press

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• I have discovered nothing new; I have only perceived what I already knew.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Nothing New

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• An artist's working life is marked by intensive application and intense discipline.

  John F. Kennedy

  Artist, Discipline, Life Is

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• The essential discovery of maturity has little if anything to do with information about the names, the locations, and the sequence of facts; it is the acquiring of a different sense of life, a different kind of intuition about the nature of things.

  Walter Lippmann

  Maturity, Names, Intuition

  Walter Lippmann, Clinton Rossiter, James Lare (1982). “The Essential Lippmann: A Political Philosophy for Liberal Democracy”, p.154, Harvard University Press

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• A new principle is an inexhaustible source of new views.

  Luc de Clapiers

  Views, Principles, Renewal

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• All artistic discoveries are discoveries not of likenesses but of equivalencies which enable us to see reality in terms of an image and an image in terms of reality.

  Ernst Gombrich

  Reality, Artistic, Term

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