Quote of the day

 

... to quote is to continue a conversation from the past in order to give context to the present.

Alberto Manguel (2006) The Library at Night, p. 224. Alfred A. Knopf, Canada.

If there is a danger in the human trajectory, it is not so much in the survival of our own species as in the fulfillment of the ultimate irony of organic evolution: that in the instant of achieving self-understanding through the mind of man, life has doomed its most beautiful creations. And thus humanity closes the door to its past.

Edward O. Wilson (1992) The Diversity of Life, p. 344. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

The ideal scientist can be said to think like a poet, work like a clerk, and write like a journalist.

Edward O. Wilson (1984) Biophilia: The Human Bond with Other Species, p. 62. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

Science has been dead wrong in the past, is dead wrong about some things now, and will be dead wrong about other things in the future. Scientific methods enable scientists to discover when they are wrong and to labor towards the truth, with many twists and turns along the way.

David Sloan Wilson (2007) Evolution for Everyone, p. 293. Delta Trade Paperbacks, New York, USA.

The crust of the earth is a vast museum; but the natural collections have been made only at intervals of time immensely remote.

Charles Darwin (1859) On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, p. 176. Illustrated edition, edited by David Quammen, Sterling, USA,

[Darwin] reminds us, as he painstakingly learned himself, that we, too, are animals, connected to life, past and present. That we are earthly residents, with the innate capacity for attentive, authentic relationships within the sum of life as we live, work, and play at the borders of nature, science, and culture. That we become alive and embodied in our attention to life's detail. That nothing in the natural world is beneath our notice.

Lynda Lynn Haupt (2006) Pilgrim on the Great Bird Continent, p. 265. Little, Brown and Company, New York, USA.

It might seem an obvious sort of thing to say, but there is a vast difference between the nature of a decent answer and that of a truly good question. An answer’s origin is not difficult to pinpoint, rising, at least in part, from within the question that called it forth. But an eloquent question is much harder to come by, and far more surprising. ... In spite of what our teachers told us, there are stupid questions, but a good question, an evocative and intelligent question, is always startling and treasurable. The best questions arise from a different sphere, from the unknown place that music and poetry comes from, the realm of creativity and curiosity and clear blue ether.

Lynda Lynn Haupt (2006) Pilgrim on the Great Bird Continent, p. 85. Little, Brown and Company, New York, USA.

To combine a curiosity for science with love of the natural world is how humankind must live on earth now, and poetry should speak of it.

Poet Gillian Clarke (2008) "Beginning with Bendigeidfran" In: At the Source, p.13. Carcenet Press, Manchester, England, UK.

In the long run, men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, though they should fail immediately, they had better aim at something high.

Henry David Thoreau (1854) Walden, p. 69. Penguin Classics, Penguin Books, New York, USA, 1986.

I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes.

Henry David Thoreau (1854) Walden, p. 66. Penguin Classics, Penguin Books, New York, USA, 1986.

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.

Henry David Thoreau (1854) Walden, p. 50. Penguin Classics, Penguin Books, New York, USA, 1986.

To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake.

Henry David Thoreau (1854) Walden, p. 134. Penguin Classics, Penguin Books, New York, USA, 1986.

If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life...

Henry David Thoreau (1854) Walden, p. 118. Penguin Classics, Penguin Books, New York, USA, 1986.

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

Henry David Thoreau (1854) Walden, p. 135. Penguin Classics, Penguin Books, New York, USA, 1986.

I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary.

Henry David Thoreau (1854) Walden, p. 135. Penguin Classics, Penguin Books, New York, USA, 1986.

Our life is frittered away by detail.

Henry David Thoreau (1854) Walden, p. 135. Penguin Classics, Penguin Books, New York, USA, 1986.

I had three chairs in my house: one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.

Henry David Thoreau (1854) Walden, p. 185. Penguin Classics, Penguin Books, New York, USA, 1986.

The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched.

Henry David Thoreau (1854) Walden, p. 264. Penguin Classics, Penguin Books, New York, USA, 1986.

The face of the earth is a graveyard, and so it has always been. To earth each living thing restores when it dies that which has been borrowed to give form and substance to its brief day in the sun. From earth, in due course, each new living being receives back again a loan of that which sustains life. What is lent by the earth has been used by countless generations of plants and animals now dead, and will be required by countless others in the future. ... No plant or animal, nor any sort of either, can establish permanent right of possession in the materials that compose its physical body.

Paul B. Sears (1935) Deserts on the March, p. 3. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Oklahoma, USA. Fourth Edition, Tenth Printing, 1980.

Knowledge grows by many paths. One is the meticulous, detailed examination of a limited part of the whole; another is the scanning of larger and more complex aspects of the challenge to ignorance, in search of pattern. Those who follow these paths lose touch, each with the other, at their peril and that of truth.

Paul B. Sears (1935) Deserts on the March, p. 72. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Oklahoma, USA. Fourth Edition, Tenth Printing, 1980.

We smile at the specialist for knowing more and more about less and less, ignoring the spectacle of our restless selves speeding on wheels and wings and learning less and less about more and more.

Paul B. Sears (1935) Deserts on the March, p. 73. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Oklahoma, USA. Fourth Edition, Tenth Printing, 1980.

We have seen how vast stretches of natural vegetation have been looked upon as obstacles to humanity, and destroyed, when in fact they are not only an essential as safeguard to the normal occupations of agriculture and industry, but could have been in themselves an unfailing source of steady, dependable wealth.

Paul B. Sears (1935) Deserts on the March, p. 231. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Oklahoma, USA. Fourth Edition, Tenth Printing, 1980.

For the perspective of the newborn, which knows no planes of distance, we must substitue that of the mature, with its sense of continuity and proportion. We are not an insensible people, utterly brutish, concerned solely with today and incapable of thinking about tomorrow. But we need to remind ourselves in our quest for immediate subsistence and wealth that while a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, birds breed in pairs and nest in bushes.

Paul B. Sears (1935) Deserts on the March, p. 247. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Oklahoma, USA. Fourth Edition, Tenth Printing, 1980.

The best thing for being sad ... is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails. ... Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting.

T. H. White (1958) The Once and Future King, p.181. Fontana Books, Collins, Fifth Impression, 1967,

... no pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage ground of truth...

A quote from the poet Lucretius included by Francis Bacon in his essay 'On Truth', 1597.

Latest changes/additions to the list: August 3 2009. Number of quotations: 25