“Winnow the chaff of a hundred creeds
Beyond these systems, hollow as reeds,
Turn unhorizened to where Truth leads,
To be unhoused, O my soul!”
Aniketana (1964)
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Kuvempu 11
Kannada novelist, poet, playwright, critic, and thinker 1904–1994Related quotes
“This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense.”
Source: The Demon-Haunted World : Science as a Candle in the Dark (1995), Ch. 17 : The Marriage of Skepticism and Wonder
Context: At the heart of science is an essential balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes - an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive, and the most ruthlessly skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense. The collective enterprise of creative thinking and skeptical thinking, working together, keeps the field on track. Those two seemingly contradictory attitudes are, though, in some tension.
Who Follow the Flag, Phi Kappa Beta Ode, Harvard University (June 30, 1910).
Source: Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid (1979), Chapter 9: "Mumon and Gödel"
“Truth has never been, can never be, contained in any one creed or system.”
Robert Elsmere. Book vi. Chap. xxxviii, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
“Treating the sword blade the same as the staff,
Turning the chariot wheel into chaff.”
"The Dust" <!-- p. 23 -->
Venus Invisible and Other Poems (1928)
Context: Treating the sword blade the same as the staff,
Turning the chariot wheel into chaff.
Toppling a pillar and nudging a wall,
Building a sand pile to counter each fall.
Yielding to nothing — not even the rose,
The dust has its reasons wherever it goes.
"Peace," st. 1.
Silex Scintillans (1655)
Context: My soul, there is a country
Far beyond the stars
Where stands a wingèd sentry
All skillful in the wars:
There, above noise and danger,
Sweet Peace is crowned with smiles,
And One born in a manger
Commands the beauteous files.
“When Fame, O monarch! good or evil tells,
Evil or good beyond the truth she swells.”
Book XXXVIII, line 327
Translations, Orlando Furioso of Ludovico Ariosto (1773)
“O God, if there be a God, save my soul, if I have a soul.”
Quoting for posterity the remarks of an unnamed soldier at the Battle of Blenheim (13 August 1704), as reported by William King in Political and Literary Anecdotes of His Own Times http://books.google.com/books?id=ShklAAAAMAAJ&q=%22O+God+if+there+be+a+God+save+my+soul+if+I+have+a+soul%22&pg=PA8#v=onepage (1818)