(Cambridge: 2002), Book 9, Chapter 1, p. 24
On the Trinity (417)
“For 't is a truth well known to most,
That whatsoever thing is lost,
We seek it, ere it come to light,
In every cranny but the right.”
The Retired Cat.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
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That whatsoever thing is lost,
We seek it, ere it come to light,
In every cran…" by William Cowper?
William Cowper 174
(1731–1800) English poet and hymnodist 1731–1800Related quotes
Jiddu Krishnamurti
(1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher
Vol. VI, p 5, "First Talk in Rajahmundry (20 November 1949) http://www.jkrishnamurti.com/krishnamurti-teachings/view-text.php?tid=335&chid=4655&w=%22You+cannot+find+truth+through+anybody+else%22, J.Krishnamurti Online, JKO Serial No. 491120
Posthumous publications, The Collected Works
Context: You cannot find truth through anybody else. How can you? Surely, truth is not something static; it has no fixed abode; it is not an end, a goal. On the contrary, it is living, dynamic, alert, alive. How can it be an end? If truth is a fixed point, it is no longer truth; it is then a mere opinion. Sir, truth is the unknown, and a mind that is seeking truth will never find it. For mind is made up of the known; it is the result of the past, the outcome of time — which you can observe for yourself. Mind is the instrument of the known; hence it cannot find the unknown; it can only move from the known to the known. When the mind seeks truth, the truth it has read about in books, that "truth" is self-projected, for then the mind is merely in pursuit of the known, a more satisfactory known than the previous one. When the mind seeks truth, it is seeking its own self-projection, not truth. After all, an ideal is self-projected; it is fictitious, unreal. What is real is what is, not the opposite. But a mind that is seeking reality, seeking God, is seeking the known. When you think of God, your God is the projection of your own thought, the result of social influences. You can think only of the known; you cannot think of the unknown, you cannot concentrate on truth. The moment you think of the unknown, it is merely the self-projected known. So, God or truth cannot be thought about. If you think about it, it is not truth. Truth cannot be sought; it comes to you. You can go after only what is known. When the mind is not tortured by the known, by the effects of the known, then only can truth reveal itself. Truth is in every leaf, every tear; it is to be known from moment to moment. No one can lead you to truth; and if anyone leads you, it can only be to the known.
Source: Special Topics in Calamity Physics
George Gordon Byron
(1788–1824) English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement
To Thomas Moore, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Peter Abelard
(1079–1142) French scholastic philosopher, theologian and preeminent logician
Variant: The key to wisdom is this - constant and frequent questioning, for by doubting we are led to question and by questioning we arrive at the truth.
“Well may your hearts believe the truths I tell:
'T is virtue makes the bliss, where'er we dwell.”
William Collins
(1721–1759) English poet, born 1721
Oriental Eclogues. 1, Line 5. Compare: "That virtue only makes our bliss below, / And all our knowledge is ourselves to know", Alexander Pope, Essay on Man, Epistle iv, line 397.
"A Grammarian's Funeral", line 115.
Men and Women (1855)
Context: That low man seeks a little thing to do,
Sees it and does it.
This high man, with a great thing to pursue,
Dies ere he knows it.
That low man goes on adding one to one,—
His hundred's soon hit;
This high man, aiming at a million,
Misses an unit.
That has the world here—should he need the next,
Let the world mind him!
This throws himself on God, and unperplexed
Seeking shall find him.