“Any truth,” Chester said, “no matter how obscure, or seemingly unimportant, is a piece of the mosaic and a step toward completion.”
Source: Tomorrow Knight (1976), Chapter 8 (p. 83)
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Michael Kurland35
American writer 1938Related quotes
“Scepticism is the first step towards truth.”
Denis Diderot book Philosophical thoughts
As quoted in The Anchor Book of French Quotations with English Translations (1963) by Norbert Gutermam
Pensées Philosophiques (1746)
Variant: A thing is not proved just because no one has ever questioned it. What has never been gone into impartially has never been properly gone into. Hence skepticism is the first step toward truth. It must be applied generally, because it is the touchstone.
Variant: The first step towards philosophy is incredulity.
Source: Pensées philosophiques
Joseph Stalin (1879–1953) General secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
In Russian: Я считаю, что совершенно неважно, кто и как будет в партии голосовать; но вот что чрезвычайно важно, это - кто и как будет считать голоса. <br class="br">Said in 1923, as quoted in The Memoirs of Stalin's Former Secretary http://www.panrus.com/books/details.php?langID=1&bookID=5905 (1992) by Boris Bazhanov [Saint Petersburg] (Борис Бажанов. Воспоминания бывшего секретаря Сталина). (Text online in Russian) http://lib.ru/MEMUARY/BAZHANOW/stalin.txt. <br class="br">Variant (loose) translation: The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything. <br class="br">Contemporary witnesses
Horace Mann (1796–1859) American politician
Source: Thoughts Selected from the Writings of Horace Mann (1872), p. 185
Context: No matter how seemingly unconnected with human affairs or remote from human interests a newly-discovered truth may appear to be, time and genius will some day make it minister to human welfare. When Dr. Franklin was once sceptically asked what was the use of some recondite and far-off truth which had just been brought to light, "What," said he, "is the use of babies?"
“That's great. Except for the fact that it's completely unimportant.”
Rick Riordan The Maze of Bones
Source: The Maze of Bones
“It is completely unimportant. That is why it is so interesting.”
Agatha Christie book The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Source: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
2015, Remarks at Panama Civil Society Forum (April 2015)
Context: It's the dreamers -- no matter how humble or poor or seemingly powerless -- that are able to change the course of human events. We saw it in South Africa, where citizens stood up to the scourge of apartheid. We saw it in Europe, where Poles marched in Solidarity to help bring down the Iron Curtain. In Argentina, where mothers of the disappeared spoke out against the Dirty War. It’s the story of my country, where citizens worked to abolish slavery, and establish women’s rights and workers’ rights, and rights for gays and lesbians.
Gene Wolfe (1931–2019) American science fiction and fantasy writer
"Words Weird and Wonderful", in Castle of the Otter (1982), Reprinted in Gene Wolfe, Castle of Days (1992)
Nonfiction
Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica
Fall 1943
Diary entries (1914 - 1974)
Source: Journals Of Anais Nin Volume 3