Riddle Quotes - Page 5

• The nature of Christ's existence is mysterious, I admit; but this mystery meets the wants of man. Reject it, and the world is an inexplicable riddle; believe it, and the history of our race is satisfactorily explained.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Believe, Men, Race

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• You train yourself in the art of being mysterious to everyone. My dear friend! What if there were no one, who cared about guessing your riddle, what pleasure would you then take in it?

  Soren Kierkegaard

  Art, What If, Guessing

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• While the poet entertains he continues to search for eternal truths, for the essence of being. In his own fashion he tries to solve the riddle of time and change, to find an answer to suffering, to reveal love in the very abyss of cruelty and injustice. Strange as these words may sound I often play with the idea that when all the social theories collapse and wars and revolutions leave humanity in utter gloom, the poet--whom Plato banned from his Republic--may rise up to save us all.

  Isaac Bashevis Singer

  Fashion, Plato, War

  Isaac Bashevis Singer, Joseph C. Landis (1986). “Aspects of I.B. Singer”

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• Every period of time is a sphinx that throws itself into the abyss as soon as its riddle has been solved.

  Heinrich Heine

  Sphinx, Periods, Abyss

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• And if you would know God, be not therefore a solver of riddles. Rather look about you and you shall see Him playing with your children. And look into space; you shall see Him walking in the cloud, outstretching His arms in the lightning and descending in rain. You shall see Him smiling in flowers, then rising and waving His hands in trees.

  Khalil Gibran

  Children, Rain, Flower

  Khalil Gibran (2007). “Kahlil Gibran: Masterpieces”

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• My grandmother told me that her father used to ask her a riddle: What must you break apart in order to bring a family close together? Bread, of course.

  Jodi Picoult

  Father, Grandmother, Order

  Jodi Picoult (2013). “The Storyteller”, p.179, Simon and Schuster

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• I am any man's suitor,
  If any will be my tutor:
  Some say this life is pleasant,
  Some think it speedeth fast,
  In time there is no present,
  In eternity no future,
  In eternity no past.
  We laugh, we cry, we are born, we die.
  Who will riddle me the how and the why?

  Alfred Lord Tennyson

  Time, Past, Men

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Alfred, Lord Tennyson (Illustrated)”, p.178, Delphi Classics

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• Would all, who cherish such wild wishes, but look around them, they would oftenest find their sphere of duty, of prosperity, and happiness, within those precincts, and in that station where Providence itself has cast their lot. Happy they who read the riddle without a weary world-search, or a lifetime spent in vain!

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

  Happiness, Wish, Looks

  Nathaniel Hawthorne (1982). “Tales and Sketches”, p.606, Library of America

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• At no period of [Michael Faraday's] unmatched career was he interested in utility. He was absorbed in disentangling the riddles of the universe, at first chemical riddles, in later periods, physical riddles. As far as he cared, the question of utility was never raised. Any suspicion of utility would have restricted his restless curiosity. In the end, utility resulted, but it was never a criterion to which his ceaseless experimentation could be subjected.

  Abraham Flexner

  Science, Careers, Curiosity

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• Religious leaders and men of science have the same ideals; they want to understand and explain the universe of which they are part; they both earnestly desire to solve, if a solution be ever possible, that great riddle: Why are we here?

  Arthur Keith

  Religious, Science, Men

  Sir Arthur Keith (1927). “Concerning man's origin: being the presidential address given at the meeting of the British association held in Leeds on August 31, 1927, and recent essays on Darwinian subjects”

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• Of course, China is a key to the North Korea if we're going to solve that riddle, but they could also be helpful on Iraq, which is why it's important that we maintain a constructive dialogue with China.

  Frank Carlucci

  Keys, Korea, Iraq

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• It may be said that myths give to the transcendent reality an immanent, this-worldly objectivity. Myths speak about gods and demons as powers on which man knows himself to be dependent, powers whose favors he needs, powers whose wrath he fears. Myths express the knowledge that man is not master of the world and his life, that the world within which he lives is full of riddles and mysteries and that human life also is full of riddles and mysteries.

  Rudolf Bultmann

  Men, Reality, Wrath

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• On what can we now place our hopes of solving the many riddles which still exist as to the origin and composition of cosmic rays?

  Victor Francis Hess

  Rays, Cosmic, Stills

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• Of course the sands of Present Time are running out from under our feet. And why not? The Great Conundrum: 'What are we here for?' is all that ever held us here in the first place. Fear. The answer to the Riddle of the Ages has actually been out in the street since the First Step in Space. Who runs may read but few people run fast enough. What are we here for? Does the great metaphysical nut revolve around that? Well, I'll crack it for you, right now. What are we here for? We are here to go!

  Brion Gysin

  Running, Nuts, Feet

  Brion Gysin (2015). “Back in No Time: The Brion Gysin Reader”, p.174, Wesleyan University Press

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• The way sadness works is one of the strange riddles of the world. If you are stricken with a great sadness, you may feel as if you have been set aflame, not only because of the enormous pain, but also because your sadness may spread over your life, like smoke from an enormous fire.

  Daniel Handler

  Sad, Pain, Fire

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• The truth beyond the fetish's glimmering mirage is the relationship of laborer to product; it is the social account of how that object came to be. In this view every commodity, beneath the mantle of its pricetag, is a hieroglyph ripe for deciphering, a riddle whose solution lies in the story of the worker who made it and the conditions under which it was made.

  Leah Hager Cohen

  Lying, Views, Stories

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• We cannot understand what happens in the universe. What is glorious in it is united with what is full of horror. What is full of meaning is united to what is senseless. The spirit of the universe is at once creative and destructive — it creates while it destroys and destroys while it creates, and therefore it remains to us a riddle. And we must inevitably resign ourselves to this.

  Albert Schweitzer

  Creative, Spirit, Horror

  Albert Schweitzer (2009). “Albert Schweitzer's Ethical Vision: A Sourcebook”, p.81, Oxford University Press

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• There are more riddles in a stone than in a philosopher's head

  Damon Knight

  Stones, Philosopher

  Damon Knight (1961). “Far Out: 13 Science Fiction Stories”

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• The Phoenix riddle hath more wit By us, we two being one, are it. So to one neutral thing both sexes fit, We die and rise the same, and prove Mysterious by this love.

  John Donne

  Love, Sex, Phoenix

  John Donne, Theodore Redpath (2009). “The Songs and Sonets of John Donne”, p.238, Harvard University Press

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• Thy word remaineth for ever, which word now appeareth unto us in the riddle of the clouds, and through the mirror of the heavens, not as it is: because that even we, though the well beloved of thy Son, yet it hath not yet appeared what we shall be. He looked through the lattice of our flesh and he spake us fair, yea, he set us on fire, and we hasten on his scent. But when he shall appear, then shall we be like him, for we shall see him as he is: as he is, Lord, will our sight be, though the time be not yet.

  Saint Augustine

  Time, Son, Fire

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• It is man's destiny to ponder on the riddle of existence and, as a byproduct of his wonderment, to create a new life on this earth.

  Charles Kettering

  Destiny, Men, New Life

  Charles Franklin Kettering (1961). “Prophet of progress: selections from the speeches of Charles F. Kettering”

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• 'The Hobbit' was one of the first biggish books I ever read. I remember vividly the 'riddles in the dark' passage, and it meant a lot to me to finally get to play it after all these years.

  Andy Serkis

  Book, Dark, Years

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• Life's perhaps the only riddle That we shrink from giving up.

  W. S. Gilbert

  Life, Giving Up, Shrinks

  W. S. Gilbert, Ian C. Bradley (2016). “The Complete Annotated Gilbert and Sullivan”, p.965, Oxford University Press

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• What a wonderful faculty is memory! -- the most mysterious and inexplicable in the great riddle of life; that plastic tablet on which the Almighty registers with unerring fidelity the records of being, making it the depository of all our words, thoughts and deeds -- this faithful witness against us for good or evil.

  Susanna Moodie

  Memories, Evil, Faithful

  Susanna Moodie (1853). “Life in the Clearings Versus the Bush”, p.304, London : R. Bentley

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• The whole [of religion] is a riddle, an ænigma, an inexplicable mystery. Doubt, uncertainty, suspence of judgment appear the onlyresult of our most accurate scrutiny, concerning this subject.

  David Hume

  Doubt, Religion, Mystery

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