Source: The Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849), Chapter II: The Lamp of Truth, section 1.
“All the more honour to those who have with honest effort striven to pierce the veil and explore the mysteries which lie behind it.”
Science and Immortality (1904)
Context: The search of science for the spirits has been neither long nor earnest; nor is it a matter of surprise that it has not been undertaken earlier by men whose training had fitted them for the work.
It is no clear, vasty deep, but a muddy, Acheronian pool in which our modern spirits dwell, with Circe as the presiding deity and the Witch of Endor as her high priestess. Commingling with the solemn incantations of the devotees who throng the banks, one can hear the mocking laughter of Puck and of Ariel, as they play among the sedges and sing the monotonous refrain, "What fools these mortals be!" Sadly besmirched, and more fitted for a sojourn in Ancyra than in Athens, has been the condition of those who have returned from the quest, and we cannot wonder that scientific men have hesitated to stir the pool and risk a touch from Circe's wand. All the more honour to those who have with honest effort striven to pierce the veil and explore the mysteries which lie behind it.
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William Osler 50
Canadian pathologist, physician, educator, bibliophile, his… 1849–1919Related quotes
“All is mystery; but he is a slave who will not struggle to penetrate the dark veil.”
Benjamin Disraeli
(1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister
Part 5, Chapter 18.
Books, Coningsby (1844), Contarini Fleming (1832)
William Osler
(1849–1919) Canadian pathologist, physician, educator, bibliophile, historian, author, cofounder of Johns Hopkins Hospi…
As quoted in Wisdom for the Soul (2006) by Larry Chang, p. 678.
Rudyard Kipling
(1865–1936) English short-story writer, poet, and novelist
"They," published in Traffics and Discoveries (1904)
Other works
“Death is the veil which those who live call life;
They sleep, and it is lifted.”
Earth, Act III, sc. iii, l. 113
Variant: Lift not the painted veil which those who live
Call Life.
Source: Prometheus Unbound (1818–1819; publ. 1820)
Manuscript Found in Accra (2012), Solitude
Source: The Wind in the Willows (1908), Ch. 7
Context: In midmost of the stream, embraced in the weir's shimmering arm-spread, a small island lay anchored, fringed close with willow and silver birch and alder. Reserved, shy, but full of significance, it hid whatever it might hold behind a veil, keeping it till the hour should come, and, with the hour, those who were called and chosen.
William Crookes
(1832–1919) British chemist and physicist
Address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1898)
Context: In old Egyptian days a well known inscription was carved over the portal of the temple of Isis: "I am whatever hath been, is, or ever will be; and my veil no man hath yet lifted." Not thus do modern seekers after truth confront nature — the word that stands for the baffling mysteries of the universe. Steadily, unflinchingly, we strive to pierce the inmost heart of Nature, from what she is to reconstruct what she has been, and to prophesy what she yet shall be. Veil after veil we have lifted, and her face grows more beautiful, august, and wonderful with every barrier that is withdrawn.
"The Mohican"
Under a Glass Bell (1944)