“The sea never changes and its works, for all the talk of men, are wrapped in mystery.”
Joseph Conrad book Typhoon
Typhoon (1902), Ch. 2
Yet Another Effort, Frenchmen, If You Would Become Republicans
Philosophy in the Bedroom (1795)
“The sea never changes and its works, for all the talk of men, are wrapped in mystery.”
Joseph Conrad book Typhoon
Typhoon (1902), Ch. 2
John Buchan book The Power-House
Source: The Power-House (1916), Ch. 8 "The Power-House"
Context: I am a sceptic about most things... but, believe me, I have my own worship. I venerate the intellect of man. I believe in its undreamed-of possibilities, when it grows free like an oak in the forest and is not dwarfed in a flower-pot. From that allegiance I have never wavered. That is the God I have never forsworn.
“Its fury aims to shatter but our altars:
It scorns only the gods and never the mortals.”
Sa fureur ne va qu'à briser nos autels,
Elle n'en veut qu'aux dieux, et non pas aux mortels.
Stratonice, act I, scene iii
Referring to the early Christian church.
Polyeucte (1642)
“A man's mind stretched to a new idea never goes back to its original dimensions.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) United States Supreme Court justice
Also reported as "One's mind" instead of "A man's mind", and "can never go back" or "never regains" instead of "never goes back"; most likely properly attributed to Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Misattributed
William Winwood Reade (1838–1875) British historian
Source: The Martyrdom of Man (1872), Chapter IV, "Intellect", p. 385.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) United States Supreme Court justice
Often given as: A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions. <br class="br">Or: A mind that is stretched by a new idea can never go back to its old dimensions. <br class="br">Actually by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Senior, from " Autocrat of the Breakfast Table https://books.google.com/books?id=BoQ3AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA502&dq=%22stretched+by+a+new+idea%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwidspn60tTJAhVJ1GMKHbt3Bn0Q6AEIHTAA#v=onepage&q=%22stretched%20by%20a%20new%20idea%22&f=false", originally published in The Atlantic, September 1858. <br class="br">Misattributed
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi
Source: Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community
Ken Ham (1951) Australian young Earth creationist
Carol Derby & Ken Ham, "The 'Evolutionizing' of a Culture", War of the World Views: Powerful Answers For An "Evolutionized" Culture (2006), p. 11 http://books.google.com/books?id=RTc_lsnp0r0C&pg=PA11