“To know that no one before you has seen an organ you are examining, to trace relationships that have occurred to no one before, to immerse yourself in the wondrous crystalline world of the microscope, where silence reigns, circumscribed by its own horizon, a blindingly white arena — all this is so enticing that I cannot describe it.”

— Vladimir Nabokov

Letter to his sister Elena Sikorski (1945); in Nabokov's Butterflies: Unpublished and Uncollected Writings (2000) Edited and annotated by Brian Boyd and Robert Michael Pyle, p. 387.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Oct. 1, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "To know that no one before you has seen an organ you are examining, to trace relationships that have occurred to no one…" by Vladimir Nabokov?

Vladimir Nabokov193

Russian-American novelist, lepidopterist, professor 1899–1977

Related quotes

“Consider well before you immerse yourself in solitude whether your own company will be good for you.”

Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830–1916) Austrian writer

Source: Aphorisms (1880/1893), p. 78.

“You say, “I want to know myself.” You are the I. You are the knowing. You are the consciousness through which everything is known and that cannot know itself. It is itself. There is nothing to know beyond that. And yet all knowing arises out of it. The “I” cannot make itself into an object of knowledge, of consciousness.
So you cannot become an object to yourself. That is the very reason the illusion of egoic identity arose because mentally you made yourself into an object. “That's me,” you say, and then you begin to have a relationship with yourself and tell others and yourself your story.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Stillness Speaks (2003)

“Here as elsewhere human reason in its pure use, so long as it was not critically examined, has first tried all possible wrong ways before it succeeded in finding the one true way.”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

Die menschliche Vernunft hat hier, wie allerwärts in ihrem reinen Gebrauche, so lange es ihr an Kritik fehlt, vorher alle mögliche unrechte Wege versucht, ehe es ihr gelingt, den einzigen wahren zu treffen.
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785)

“Sometimes you meet yourself on the road before you have a chance to learn the appropriate greeting. Faced with your own possibilities, the hard part is knowing a speech is not required. All you have to say is yes.”

Pearl Cleage What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day

Source: What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day

“In moments of great grief, that's where you look and immerse yourself. You realise you are not immortal, you are not a god, you are part of the natural world and you come to accept that.”

David Attenborough (1926) British broadcaster and naturalist

"David Attenborough at 90: 'I think about my mortality every day'" http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/david-attenborough-at-90-i-think-about-my-mortality-every-day/, interview with Joe Shute, The Telegraph (29 October 2016)

“Before you can make meaning, an odd kind of election process must occur. You must nominate yourself as the meaning-maker in your life and as the hero of your own story. Then you must consciously elect yourself to that position.”

Eric Maisel (1947) American writer

Source: The Atheist’s Way (2009), p. 65

“When I visit places remote from where I ordinarily work, people ask me long, elaborate questions that could not possibly have any relationship to my work. The people haven't ever seen it, and so I say: 'But my dear sir, have you ever seen my work?' The response is: 'Of course, I've seen many of your works.' - 'But where?' - 'In Artforum, Art in America..' - I say: 'Have you ever actually seen one of the objects, have you actually stood on one of them?”

Carl Andre (1935) American artist

quote from: 'Un entretien entre Carl Andre et Elisabeth Lebovici et Thierry Chabanne,', question 15; reprinted in the chapter 'Art and Capitalism' as 'Art and Reproduction.'

“Yes I'm talking about this war dance
A patriotic romance
And I know all you poets
Have seen it all before
About the stirring of those young hearts
Back in the first world war”

Colin Moulding (1955) English bassist, songwriter and vocalist

"War Dance"
Nonsuch (1992)

“I am Love: in heaven and earth I have no place;
I am the Wondrous Phoenix whose spoor cannot be traced.”

Fakhruddin 'Iraqi (1213–1289) Persian philosopher

Fakhruddin Iraqi: Divine Flashes (1982)

“I'm excited, but I am also realistic. I have seen what happened to the people who came before me and failed. It's an unforgiving arena to be in.”

Jimmy Kimmel (1967) American talk show host and comedian

On the beginning of Jimmy Kimmel Live! — reported in Terry Morrow (January 24, 2003) "Kimmel & family head to ABC (beer's on hold)", The Knoxville News-Sentinel, p. 9.

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Vladimir Nabokov193

Related quotes

Related topics