Quotes about searching (1297 quotes, page 13)

“I wrote the play in English because I wanted non-Latinos to see it. I tried to draw Americans into the world of the play and to have them realize that, but for an accident at birth, they, too, might have found themselves crossing a terrible desert in search of a better life…”

Carlos Lacámara (1958) American actor

On the chosen language for Nowhere on the Border (as quoted in the book Nuestras Voces: Latino Plays, Volume One https://books.google.com/books?id=FLj1AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA258&lpg=PA258&dq)

Drawing , World , Life , Birth

“As I have already mentioned in the introduction to this volume, this handbook is not destined to be the steppingstone in the search after wealth and honor, but it has to serve the purpose of studying Man the microcosm in relation to the macrocosmic Universe together with their laws... He who stands upon the purely materialistic position, an unbeliever in religious matters, ignoring supernatural phenomena and only concerned in material interests, undoubtedly will regard this book as sheer nonsense, and I am not purposed to convert such people to any faith or to change their ideas. This work has exclusively been written for those who seek...”

Franz Bardon book Initiation Into Hermetics

Source: Initiation Into Hermetics (1956), p. 169.

Faith , Study , Law , Wealth

“There have been many complaints of people interested in the occult sciences that they had never got any chance at all to be initiated by a personal master or leader (guru). Therefore only people endowed with exceptional faculties, a poor preferred minority seemed to be able to gain this sublime knowledge. Thus a great many of serious seekers of the truth had to go through piles of books just to catch one pearl of it now and again. The one, however, who is earnestly interested in his progress and does not pursue this sacred wisdom from sheer curiosity or else is yearning to satisfy his own lust, will find the right leader to initiate him in this book. No incarnate adept, however high his rank may be, can give the disciple more for his start than the present book does. If both the honest trainee and the attentive reader will find in this book all they have been searching for in vain all the years, then the book has fulfilled its purpose completely.”

Franz Bardon book Initiation Into Hermetics

Introduction p. 8.
Initiation Into Hermetics (1956)

Chance , Personality , People , Knowledge

“America, in the assembly of nations, since her admission among them, has invariably, though often fruitlessly, held forth to them the hand of honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous reciprocity. She has uniformly spoken among them, though often to heedless and often to disdainful ears, the language of equal liberty, of equal justice, and of equal rights. She has, in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a single exception, respected the independence of other nations while asserting and maintaining her own. She has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart. She has seen that probably for centuries to come, all the contests of that Aceldama the European world, will be contests of inveterate power, and emerging right. Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force. The frontlet on her brows would no longer beam with the ineffable splendor of freedom and independence; but in its stead would soon be substituted an imperial diadem, flashing in false and tarnished lustre the murky radiance of dominion and power. She might become the dictatress of the world; she would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.... Her glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march is the march of the mind. She has a spear and a shield: but the motto upon her shield is, Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has been her Declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her practice.”

John Quincy Adams (1767–1848) American politician, 6th president of the United States (in office from 1825 to 1829)

Independence Day address (1821)

Peace , Justice , Friendship , Freedom

“Isn’t that funny: people wearing the mantle of the academic quest for knowledge who denounce the search for knowledge on the dogmatic plea that the outcome is known beforehand? …Even back then, given all the earlier evidence, everything indicated that something would be discovered. They themselves cannot have been ignorant of this, so their opposition was a deliberate attempt to obstruct the progress of scientific knowledge.”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

2000s, Ayodhya, the Finale (2003)

Knowledge , People

“After all, the call for historical proof was only launched by India’s secularists spoiling for a fight, as a dispersionary tactic… They themselves have not contributed any evidence to the search for the historical true story, they were actually demanding from the Hindu side what they themselves never provided, - indeed, never intended to provide. In the process, their ulterior motives have come to light…”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

2000s, Ayodhya: The Case Against the Temple (2002)

Fight , Light , Motivation

“A great man is the unbelieving man; he is without spiritual sight or spiritual hearing; his glory is in understanding his own understanding. It is he who subdues the forest, tames the beasts of the field to service. He goes alone in the dark, unafraid. He follows no man’s course, but, searches for himself; the priests cannot make him believe, nor the angels of heaven; none can subdue his judgment. He says: why permit others even priests, to you think for you? Stand on your own feet – be a man. Through his arm are tyrants and evil kings overthrown. Through him are doctrines and religions sifted to the bottom and the falsehood and evil in them cast aside. Who but the Creator could have created so great a man as the unbeliever?”

Kenneth Arnold (1915–1984) American aviator and businessman

Kenneth Arnold's paraphrasing of a section from Oahspe: A New Bible by John Ballou Newbrough (1828–1891), p. 361, which he handed out as his " philosophy card http://www.blueblurrylines.com/2017/03/ufos-kenneth-arnold-and-american-bible.html".

Religion , Understanding , Angels , Thinking

“Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write. Let every order and degree among the people rouse their attention and animate their resolution. Let them all become attentive to the grounds and principles of government, ecclesiastical and civil. Let us study the law of nature; search into the spirit of the British constitution; read the histories of ancient ages; contemplate the great examples of Greece and Rome; set before us the conduct of our own British ancestors, who have defended for us the inherent rights of mankind against foreign and domestic tyrants and usurpers, against arbitrary kings and cruel priests, in short, against the gates of earth and hell.”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

1760s, A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law (1765)

Hell , Study , History , Law

“We’re up the highway from Colorado Springs. The holy rollers are big in Colorado. Mostly they’re harmless, ’long as you’re not a young woman in search of an abortion.”

Charles Stross The Laundry Files

Source: The Laundry Files, The Apocalypse Codex (2012), Chapter 10, “Things To Do in Denver When You’re Doomed” (pp. 182-183)

Spring

“It has been called a problem of adaptation. There is a subjective and there is an objective, a self and a not-self. And between this self and the not-self there is incessant irrelation. That which is not-self is a process, always changing. It never tires of adopting new attitudes toward the self. The self also is a process, and hence is continually losing joint, or is in continual danger of losing joint, with its environment. Life, therefore, at best, since in the nature of things it is a struggle and a search, is an enterprise with exasperating lack of sunshine.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: Better-World Philosophy: A Sociological Synthesis (1899), The Social Problem, pp. 74–75

Nature , Problem , Self-confidence , Life

“For as long as there been humans we have searched for our place in the cosmos. Where are we? Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a hum-drum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people. This perspective is a courageous continuation of our penchant for constructing and testing mental models of the skies; the Sun as a red-hot stone, the stars as a celestial flame, the Galaxy as the backbone of night.”

Carl Sagan book Cosmos

Source: Cosmos (1980), p. 193

Courage , Night , Sun , Star

“Proponents of doctrinal religions—ones in which a particular body of belief is prized and infidels scorned—will be threatened by the courageous pursuit of knowledge. We hear from such people that it may be dangerous to probe too deeply. Many people have inherited their religion like their eye color: they consider it not a thing to think very deeply about, and in any case beyond our control. But those with a set of beliefs they profess to feel deeply about, which they have selected without an unbiased sifting through the facts and the alternatives, will feel uncomfortably challenged by searching questions. Anger at queries about our beliefs is the body’s warning signal: here lies unexamined and probably dangerous doctrinal baggage.”

Carl Sagan book Broca's Brain

Source: Broca's Brain (1979), Chapter 23, “A Sunday Sermon” (pp. 339-340)

Courage , Religion , Anger , Question

“The search for patterns without critical analysis, and rigid skepticism without a search for patterns, are the antipodes of incomplete science. The effective pursuit of knowledge requires both functions.”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

Source: The Dragons of Eden (1977), Chapter 7, “Lovers and Madmen” (p. 192)

Knowledge , Science

“There is no way to tell whether the patterns extracted by the right hemisphere are real or imagined without subjecting them to left-hemisphere scrutiny. On the other hand, mere critical thinking, without creative and intuitive insights, without the search for new patterns, is sterile and doomed. To solve complex problems in changing circumstances requires the activity of both cerebral hemispheres: the path to the future lies through the corpus callosum.”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

Source: The Dragons of Eden (1977), Chapter 7, “Lovers and Madmen” (pp. 190-191)

Imagination , Future , Problem , Thinking

“Science is the most real guide for civilisation, for life, for success in the world. To search for a guide other than science is absurdity, ignorance and heresy.”

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881–1938) Turkish army officer, revolutionary, and the first President of Turkey

As quoted in Atatürkçülük, Volume I, General Staff of the Republic of Turkey, Millî Eğitim Basımevi, 1984, p. 283

Success , World , Science , Life

“I constantly sought knowledge and truth, and it became my belief that for gaining access to the effulgence and closeness to God, there is no better way than that of searching for truth and knowledge.”

Alhazen (965–1038) Arab physicist, mathematician and astronomer

Firas al-Khateeb, Lost Islamic History https://www.amazon.com/Lost-Islamic-History-Reclaiming-Civilisation/dp/1849043973

God , Knowledge , Truth , Way

“Despairingly, sometimes, I seek the comfort of a benign god, Shaarilla. My mind goes out, lying awake at night, searching through black barrenness for something—anything—which will take me to it, warm me, protect me, tell me that there is order in the chaotic tumble of the universe; that it is consistent, this precision of the planets, not simply a brief, bright spark of sanity in an eternity of malevolent anarchy.”

Michael Moorcock (1939) English writer, editor, critic

Elric sighed and his quiet tones were tinged with hopelessness. “Without some confirmation of the order of things, my only comfort is to accept the anarchy. This way, I can revel in chaos and know, without fear, that we are doomed from the start—that our brief existence is both meaningless and damned. I can accept, then, that we are more than forsaken, because there was never anything there to forsake us. I have weighed the proof, Shaarilla, and must believe that anarchy prevails, in spite of all the laws which seemingly govern our actions, our sorcery, our logic. I see only chaos in the world. If the book we seek tells me otherwise, then I shall gladly believe it. Until then, I will put my trust only in my sword and myself.”
Source: The Elric Cycle, The Weird of the White Wolf (1977), Chapter 1, “A Woman Who Would Risk Grief to Her Soul” (p. 451)

God , Night , Universe , Lying

“Existence, for all organismic life, is a constant struggle to feed-a struggle to incorporate whatever other organisms they can fit into their mouths and press down their gullets without choking. Seen in these stark terms, life on this planet is a gory spectacle, a science-fiction nightmare in which digestive tracts fitted with teeth at one end are tearing away at whatever flesh they can reach, and at the other end are piling up the fuming waste excrement as they move along in search of more flesh.”

Ernest Becker (1924–1974) American anthropologist

"The Human Condition: Between Appetite and Ingenuity", p. 1
Escape from Evil (1975)

Science , Life , Tear

“The answer is in the problem, not away from the problem. I go through the searching, analysing, dissecting process, in order to escape from the problem. But, if I do not escape from the problem and try to look at the problem without any fear or anxiety, if I merely look at the problem — mathematical, political, religious, or any other — and not look to an answer, then the problem will begin to tell me. Surely, this is what happens. We go through this process and eventually throw it aside because there is no way out of it. So, why can’t we start right from the beginning, that is, not seek an answer to a problem?”

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher

which is extremely arduous, isn’t it? Because, the more I understand the problem, the more significance there is in it. To understand, I must approach it quietly, not impose on the problem my ideas, my feelings of like and dislike. Then the problem will reveal its significance. Why is it not possible to have tranquillity of the mind right from the beginning?
"Eighth Talk in The Oak Grove, 7 August 1949" http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/krishnamurti-teachings/view-text.php?tid=320&chid=4643&w=%22The+answer+is+in+the+problem%2C+not+away+from+the+problem%22, J.Krishnamurti Online, JKO Serial No. 490807, Vol. V, p. 283
Posthumous publications, The Collected Works

Problem , Mathematics , Way , Fear

“Anderson demonstrates that if one accepts a sham mystery as real, one has stopped or strayed in the search for truth, and truth has survival value.”

Poul Anderson (1926–2001) American science fiction and fantasy writer

Patrick L. McGuire, Her Strong Enchantments Failing (p. 94)
Short fiction, The Book of Poul Anderson (1975)

Truth

“Had those who drew and ratified the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth Amendment or the Fourteenth Amendment known the components of liberty in its manifold possibilities, they might have been more specific. They did not presume to have this insight. They knew times can blind us to certain truths and later generations can see that laws once thought necessary and proper in fact serve only to oppress. As the Constitution endures, persons in every generation can invoke its principles in their own search for greater freedom.”

Anthony Kennedy (1936) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=000&invol=02-102 (26 June 2003).

Time , Law , Freedom , Personality

“The search for the curvature K indicates that, after making all known corrections, the number N seems to increase faster with d than the third power, which would be expected in a Euclidean space, hence K is positive.”

Howard P. Robertson (1903–1961) American mathematician and physicist

The space implied thereby is therefore bounded, of finite total volume, and of a present "radius of curvature" <math>R = \frac{1}{K^\frac{1}{2}}</math> which is found to be of the order of 500 million light years. Other observations, on the "red shift" of light from these distant objects, enable us to conclude with perhaps more assurance that this radius is increasing...
Geometry as a Branch of Physics (1949)

Making love

“There is… no definitive interpretation for him but the search for repose, for a place where music, far from any pretension, vibrates naturally, where it can breathe more than show off.”

Yehudi Menuhin (1916–1999) American violinist and conductor

Eric Taver in: About Yehudi Menuhin http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/yehudi-menuhin/about-yehudi-menuhin/661/, Public Broadcasting Service Organization, 28 October 2006

Music , Nature

“In his 10 months in office he has aroused more controversy, and attracted more condemnation, than any of his predecessors in the same period. Students continue to immolate themselves in the belief that he symbolises the forces responsible for their ever-mounting frustration in the search for employment. At the same time, he has authorized the arrest of Lal Krishna Advani, whose rath yatra was projected as a holy campaign to arouse Hindu awareness of the need to salve the hurt caused to their religious heritage.”

V. P. Singh (1931–2008) Indian politician

Ajit Bhattacharjee in: Why V.P. Singh Must Be Defended http://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article1116.html, Mainstream Weekly

Hurt , Time

“Therefore, come to our aid you who alone are able. For this rivalry exists for sake of you, whom alone they revere in everything that all seem to worship. For each one desires in all that he seems to desire only the good which you are; no one is seeking with all his intellectual searching for anything else than the truth which you are. For what does the living seek except to live? What does the existing seek except to exist?”

Nicholas of Cusa (1401–1464) German philosopher, theologian, jurist, and astronomer

De Pace Fidei (The Peace of Faith) (1453)

Truth

“Music, for Gangubai, was an expression of faith and the note had to be searched and discovered each time a phrase was attempted. …In her case, a penetrating search for the note was more important than ornamentation. She could never achieve the sweetness, smoothness or the delicate artistry of tones that the Kirana was noted for, but with inherited talent, scrupulous cultivation and years of struggle what she achieved was unbelievable.”

Gangubai Hangal (1913–2009) Indian singer

Deepa Ganesh, in "Gangubai's search for perfection"

Music , Faith , Time

“I was and still am her great admirer and fan. She signified to me the epitome of Indian grace and culture. She possessed in her the mischievous streak of that precocious village belle and the spirited movement of a Shiv Tandav. She looked vulnerable and lost, searching for protection in one moment, yet knowledged and mature in another. You felt like protecting and guarding her from all the evil of the world and to gently wipe away any frayed eyebrows that may have accumulated on her face. Her performances were pure and clean, without effort and deliberate design. They were just a part of her - simple and soft.”

Waheeda Rehman (1938) Indian actress

‘Devoted’ Amitabh fetched Waheeda’s chappals

Knowledge , Parting , World , Evil

“What I have created here in Italy is neither very big nor profound (in the old sense of the word), but formidable. This summer I painted paintings that are the most profound that exist in the absolute. Let me explain these things somewhat.... profoundness as I understand it, and as Nietzsche intended it, is elsewhere than where it has been searched for until now.”

Giorgio de Chirico (1888–1978) Italian artist

My paintings are small (the biggest is 50 x 70 cm), but each of them is an enigma, each contains a poem, an atmosphere (Stimmung) and a promise that you can not find in other paintings. It brings me immense joy to have painted them – when I exhibit them, possibly in Munich this spring, it will be a revelation for the whole world
Quote from De Chirico's letter to Mr. Fritz Gartz, Florence, 26 Jan. 1910; from LETTERS BY GIORGIO DE CHIRICO, GEMMA DE CHIRICO AND ALBERTO DE CHIRICO TO FRITZ GARTZ, MILAN-FLORENCE, 1908-1911 http://www.fondazionedechirico.org/wp-content/uploads/559-567Metafisica7_8.pdf, p. 562
1908 - 1920

Painting , Understanding , Sense , Summer

“Youth -- nothing else worth having in the world…and I had youth, the transitory, the fugitive, now, completely and abundantly. Yet what was I going to do with it? Certainly not squander its gold on the commonplace quest for riches and respectability, and then secretly lament the price that had to be paid for these futile ideals. Let those who wish have their respectability -- I wanted freedom, freedom to indulge in whatever caprice struck my fancy, freedom to search in the farthermost corners of the earth for the beautiful, the joyous and the romantic.”

Richard Halliburton (1900–1939) American writer

The Royal Road to Romance (1925).

Freedom , Beauty , Youth , World

“Abstract cleverness of the mind only separates the thinker from the world of reality, and that world, the Forest of Real Life, is in a desperate condition now because of too many who think too much and care too little. In spite of what many minds have thought themselves into believing, that mistake cannot continue for much longer if everything is going to survive. The one chance we have to avoid certain disaster is to change our approach, and learn to value wisdom and contentment. These are things that are being searched for anyway, through Knowledge and Cleverness, but they do not come from Knowledge and Cleverness. They never have, and they never will. We can no longer afford to look so desperately hard for something in the wrong way and in the wrong place. If Knowledge and Cleverness are allowed to go on wrecking things, they will before much longer destroy all life on this earth as we know it, and what little may temporarily survive will not be worth looking at, even if it were possible for us to do so.”

Benjamin Hoff book The Tao of Pooh

The Now of Pooh.
The Tao of Pooh (1982)

Chance , Learning , Knowledge , Thinking

“Throughout time, leading thinkers, academicians, and government leaders have attempted to develop an understanding of how to build peace. Many approaches have been explored, all attempting to create favorable conditions for peace. These solutions have drawn from economics, history, international law, comparative peace studies, conflict resolution, political science, sociology, anthropology, and more. Prem Rawat’s message of peace is rooted in the need for each person to find peace within themselves. He emphasizes that whether our search is for world peace or for personal peace, we very much need to look at the search for peace as a personal quest, rooted in an understanding of who we are.”

Prem Rawat (1957) controversial spiritual leader

Professor Dr. Surapon Nitikraipot, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Rector of Thammasat University, Bangkok, Thailand, May 17 2005
About, 2000s

Peace , Study , Time , History

“We absolutely must leave room for doubt or there is no progress and no learning. There is no learning without having to pose a question. And a question requires doubt. People search for certainty. But there is no certainty. People are terrified — how can you live and not know?”

Richard Feynman book The Pleasure of Finding Things Out

It is not odd at all. You only think you know, as a matter of fact. And most of your actions are based on incomplete knowledge and you really don't know what it is all about, or what the purpose of the world is, or know a great deal of other things. It is possible to live and not know.
from lecture "What is and What Should be the Role of Scientific Culture in Modern Society", given at the Galileo Symposium in Italy (1964)
The Pleasure of Finding Things Out (1999)

Question , People , Learning

“Very often we will have the impression of having reached the end of the task, because we will find (or they will bring us) similar hairs of the one we seek; but since it is not known of any case where a hair has a knot in the middle without human hand intervention, we will almost always end up with the knot in question being a mere thickening of the caliber of the hair (although we do not know of any similar case) or a deposit of some silicate or any oxide produced by a long stay against a wet surface. It is probable that we will advance in this way through various sections of major and minor pipes, until we reach that place where no one will decide to penetrate: the main drain heading in the direction of the river, the torrential meeting of detritus in which no money, no boat, no bribe will allow us to continue the search.”

Julio Cortázar book Historias de cronopios y de famas

Historias de Cronopios y de Famas (1962)

Money , Question , Way

“Without wasting an instant, must start the hair recovery task. The first operation is reduced to dismantling the siphon from the sink to see if the hair has become hooked in any of the rugosities of the drain. If it is not found, it is necessary to expose the section of pipe that goes from the siphon to the main drainage pipe. It is certain that in this part will appear many hairs and we will have to count on the help of the rest of the family to examine them one by one in search of the knot. If it does not appear, the interesting problem of breaking the pipe down to the ground floor will arise, but this means a greater effort, because for eight or ten years we will have to work in a ministry or trading house to collect enough money to buy the four departments located under the one of my elder cousin, all that with the extraordinary disadvantage of what while working during those eight or ten years, the distressing feeling that the hair is no longer in the pipes anymore can not be avoided and that only by a remote chance remains hooked on some rusty spout of the drain.”

Julio Cortázar book Historias de cronopios y de famas

Historias de Cronopios y de Famas (1962)

Money , Family , Chance , Housing

“To become aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair. The movies are onto the search, but they screw it up. The search always ends in despair. They like to show a fellow coming to himself in a strange place-but what does he do? He takes up with the local librarian, sets about proving to the local children what a nice fellow he is, and settles down with a vengeance. In two weeks time he is so sunk in everydayness that he might just as well be dead.”

Walker Percy book The Moviegoer

The Moviegoer (1961)

Despair , Time , Dead , Children

“And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of time press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms; or to raise standing armies, unless when necessary for the defence of the United States, or of some one or more of them; or to prevent the people from petitioning, in a peaceable and orderly manner, the federal legislature, for a redress of grievances; or to subject the people to unreasonable searches and seizures of their persons, papers or possessions.”

Samuel Adams (1722–1803) American statesman, Massachusetts governor, and political philosopher

Rejected resolution for a clause to add to the first article of the U.S. Constitution, in the debates of the Massachusetts Convention of 1788 (6 February 1788); this has often been attributed to Adams, but he is nowhere identified as the person making the resolution in Debates and Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Held in the year 1788 And which finally ratified the Constitution of the United States. (1856) p. 86. https://archive.org/details/debatesandproce00peirgoog
Disputed

Personality , Time , People

“The future belongs to neither the conduit or content players, but those who control the filtering, searching and sense-making tools we will rely on to navigate through the expanses of cyberspace.”

Paul Saffo (1954) American writer

Wired Magazine: 3/1994 " It's the Context, Stupid. https://www.saffo.com/essays/its-the-context-stupid/"

Sense , Future , Making love

“Emotions are continually affecting our thought processes and decisions, below the level of our awareness. And the most common emotion of them all is the desire for pleasure and the avoidance of pain. Our thoughts almost inevitably revolve around this desire; we simply recoil from entertaining ideas that are unpleasant or painful to us. We imagine we are looking for the truth, or being realistic, when in fact we are holding on to ideas that bring a release from tension and soothe our egos, make us feel superior. This pleasure principle in thinking is the source of all of our mental biases. If you believe that you are somehow immune to any of the following biases, it is simply an example of the pleasure principle in action. Instead, it is best to search and see how they continually operate inside you, as well as learn how to identify such irrationality in others.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 1 : Master Your Emotional Self
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Pain , Imagination , Learning , Pleasure

“A cage went in search of a bird.”

Franz Kafka book The Zürau Aphorisms

The Zürau Aphorisms (1917 - 1918), 16

Bird

“The history of many saints, beatified by the church, is repugnant. It shows nothing more than a profound aberration of the human spirit in search of ultra-terrestrial chimeras.”

Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) Duce and President of the Council of Ministers of Italy. Leader of the National Fascist Party and subsequen…

1900s, God Does Not Exist (1904)

History

“Every questioning is a seeking. Every seeking takes its direction beforehand from what is sought. Questioning is a knowing search for beings in their thatness and whatness.”

Martin Heidegger book Being and Time

Introduction: The Exposition of the Question of the Meaning of Being (Stambaugh translation)
Being and Time (1927)

Question

“Search in your past for what is good and beautiful. Build your future from there.”

Paul Kruger (1825–1904) President of the South African Republic

From his last letter. As reported in: They Made this Land Donker, 1981, p. 164

Past , Beauty , Future

“Search not to find what lies too deeply hid,
Nor to know things whose knowledge is forbid;
Nor climb on pyramids, which thy head turn round
Standing, and whence no safe descent is found.”

John Denham (1615–1669) English poet and courtier

Source: Of Prudence (1668), line 231

Knowledge

“Search not to find how other men offend,
But by that glass thy own offences mend;
Still seek to learn, yet care not much from whom,
(So it be learning) or from whence it come.
Of thy own actions, others' judgments learn;
Often by small, great matters we discern:
Youth what man's age is like to be doth show;
We may our ends by our beginnings know.”

John Denham (1615–1669) English poet and courtier

Source: Of Prudence (1668), line 225

Learning , Youth , Age , Men

“Wisdom of what herself approves makes choice,
Nor is led captive by the common voice.
Clear-sighted Reason Wisdom's judgment leads,
And Sense, her vassal, in her footsteps treads.
That thou to Truth the perfect way may'st know,
To thee all her specific forms I'll show:
He that the way to honesty will learn,
First what's to be avoided must discern.
Thyself from flatt'ring self-conceit defend,
Nor what thou dost not know to know pretend.
Some secrets deep in abstruse darkness lie:
To search them thou wilt need a piercing eye.
Not rashly therefore to such things assent,
Which, undeceived, thou after may'st repent;
Study and time in these must thee instruct,
And others' old experience may conduct.
Wisdom herself her ear doth often lend
To counsel offer'd by a faithful friend.”

John Denham (1615–1669) English poet and courtier

Source: Of Prudence (1668), line 11

Faith , Study , Time , Learning

“Millions living today have experienced transcendent aspects of reality and have incorporated this knowledge into their lives. A mystical experience, however brief, is validating for those attracted to the spiritual search. The mind now knows what the heart had only hoped for. But the same experience can be deeply distressing to one unprepared for it, who must then try to fit it into an inadequate belief system.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

Source: The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Eleven, Spiritual Adventure: Connection to the Source, p. 362

Hope , Heart , Knowledge , Reality

“The autonomy so evident in social movements is hitting the old assumptions of medicine hard. The search for self becomes a search for health, for wholeness—the cache of sanity search for health, for wholeness—the cache of sanity and wisdom that once seemed beyond our conscious reach.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

Source: The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Eight, Healing Ourselves, p. 241

Self-confidence , Wisdom , Health

“The spiritual quest begins, for most people, as a search for meaning.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Eleven, Spiritual Adventure: Connection to the Source

People

“I’m shocked at the countless hundreds of millions of dollars that have been spent over the years in the desperate and fruitless search for extraterrestrial life... Of course, secularists are desperate to find life in outer space, as they believe that would provide evidence that life can evolve in different locations and given the supposed right conditions! The search for extraterrestrial life is really driven by man’s rebellion against God in a desperate attempt to supposedly prove evolution!... And I do believe there can’t be other intelligent beings in outer space because of the meaning of the gospel. You see, the Bible makes it clear that Adam’s sin affected the whole universe. This means that any aliens would also be affected by Adam’s sin, but because they are not Adam’s descendants, they can’t have salvation. One day, the whole universe will be judged by fire, and there will be a new heavens and earth. God’s Son stepped into history to be Jesus Christ, the “Godman,” to be our relative, and to be the perfect sacrifice for sin—the Savior of mankind. Jesus did not become the “GodKlingon” or the “GodMartian!””

Ken Ham (1951) Australian young Earth creationist

Only descendants of Adam can be saved. God’s Son remains the “Godman” as our Savior. In fact, the Bible makes it clear that we see the Father through the Son (and we see the Son through His Word). To suggest that aliens could respond to the gospel is just totally wrong. An understanding of the gospel makes it clear that salvation through Christ is only for the Adamic race—human beings who are all descendants of Adam.

"We'll find a new Earth within 20 years" http://blogs.answersingenesis.org/blogs/ken-ham/2014/07/20/well-find-a-new-earth-within-20-years/, Around the World with Ken Ham (July 20, 2014)
2010s, Around the World with Ken Ham

God , History , Intelligence , Perfection

“At first sight, domesticated animals may seem much better off than their wild cousins and ancestors. Wild buffaloes spend their days searching for food, water and shelter, and are constantly threatened by lions, parasites, floods and droughts. Domesticated cattle, by contrast, enjoy care and protection from humans. People provide cows and calves with food, water and shelter, they treat their diseases, and protect them from predators and natural disasters. True, most cows and calves sooner or later find themselves in the slaughterhouse. Yet does that make their fate any worse than that of wild buffaloes? Is it better to be devoured by a lion than slaughtered by a man? Are crocodile teeth kinder than steel blades?”

Yuval Noah Harari (1976) Israeli historian

" Industrial farming is one of the worst crimes in history https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/sep/25/industrial-farming-one-worst-crimes-history-ethical-question", The Guardian, 25 Sept. 2011

Food , Fate , People , Nature

“The actions that move the world have been prompted and inspired by dreams and visions. The search for the philosopher's stone laid the foundations of modern chemistry; modern travel and geography owe their chief advances to the search for the fabled realm of Cathay.”

Walter Raleigh (professor) (1861–1922) British academic

p. 15 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=yale.39002032470974;view=1up;seq=31
English Voyages of the Sixteenth Century (1906)

World , Travel , Dreams

“Existential angst is often a disease of privilege. If you're actually being oppressed you have a struggle. You have something to fight for, and therefore a purpose, but for a lot of men their lack of purpose puts them in search of a struggle.”

Natalie Wynn ContraPoints

ContraPoints

Fight , Disease , Men

“The truth of a story is what the novelist strives for, and quite often the writer is taken down strange and unexpected paths on this search.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Source: The Rock that Is Higher (1993)

Truth

“You are not the sum of your Google searches, Amazon purchases, and Facebook likes. Your online activities should not define you as a person. But, increasingly, they do.”

Guy P. Harrison (1963) American skeptic author

Personality

“Credulity in arts and opinions... is likewise of two kinds viz., when men give too much belief to arts themselves, or to certain authors in any art. The sciences that sway the imagination more than the reason are principally three viz., astrology, natural magic, and alchemy... Alchemy may be compared to the man who told his sons that he had left them gold, buried somewhere in his vineyard; while they by digging found no gold, but by turning up the mould about the roots of the vines procured a plentiful vintage. So the search and endeavours to make gold have brought many useful inventions to light.”

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author

Source: De Augmentis Scientiarum (1623) as quoted by Edward Thorpe, History of Chemistry, Vol. 1, p. 43.

Imagination , Light , Art , Nature

“When ecologists find a predictable life-span of a generation separating us from total extinction, it would seem that we have a duty to search for another interpretation of mankind’s life story.”

Vine Deloria Jr. (1933–2005) American writer

As quoted in "Daniel Quinn: Another Interpretation of the ‘Meaning of Life" by Nicolae Tanase, at Excellence Reporter (28 March 2016) https://excellencereporter.com/2016/03/28/daniel-quinn-another-interpretation-of-the-meaning-of-life/

Life

“Every day
When the enchanted times child shares my solitude
She lifts me with fatal calmness
Out of the orbit of the four seasons
Through the worn out doors
Searching for the fifth Season
Where dreams should have poured.”

Thuraya AlArrayed (1948) Saudi poet and writer

The Doors ;the Game of Times
Source: Patty Paine, ‎Jeff Lodge, ‎Samia Touati (2011). Gathering the Tide: An Anthology of Contemporary Arabian Gulf Poetry. p. 255

Time , Dreams , Season , Solitude

“O may I join the choir invisible
Of those immortal dead who live again
In minds made better by their presence; live
In pulses stirred to generosity,
In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn
For miserable aims that end with self,
In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars,
And with their mild persistence urge men's search
To vaster issues.”

George Eliot (1819–1880) English novelist, journalist and translator

O May I Join the Choir Invisible (1867)

Night , Dead , Star , Self-confidence

“As new technologies search out and lace over every interstice in the net of global communication, we find ourselves with increasingly less excuse for…slack. And that, I would argue, is what the World Wide Web, the test pattern for whatever will become the dominant global medium, offers us. Today, in its clumsy, larval, curiously innocent way, it offers us the opportunity to waste time…It will probably evolve into something considerably less random, and less fun — we seem to have a knack for that — but in the meantime, in its gloriously unsorted Global Ham Television Postcard Universes phase, surfing the Web is a procrastinator’s dream. And people who see you doing it might even imagine you’re working.”

William Gibson book Distrust That Particular Flavor

"The Net Is a Waste of Time," The New York Times Magazine, July 14, 1996.
Distrust That Particular Flavor (2012)

Imagination , Time , Dreams , People

“Art is contemplation. It is the pleasure of the mind which searches into nature and which there divines the spirit by which Nature herself is animated. It is the joy of the intellect which sees clearly into the Universe and which recreates it, with conscientious vision. Art is the most sublime mission of man, since it is the expression of thought seeking to understand the world and to make it understood.”

Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) French sculptor

Preface, p. 7-8
1910s, Art, 1912

Understanding , Art , Pleasure , Nature

“I know that God only works for good in the lives of His children. Our responsibility is to search for God's will, find it, and do it to the best of our imperfect ability. The outcome is already decided. And it is always for good. As a matter of faith, I never question outcomes.”

L. Lin Wood (1952) American lawyer

20 May 2021 https://twitter.com/patriottakes/status/1395227279748255745/photo/1

God , Faith , Question , Children

“By what sort of experience are we led to the conviction that spirit exists ? On the whole, by searching, painful experience. The rose Religion grows on a thorn-bush, and we must not be afraid to have our fingers lacerated by the thorns if we would pluck the rose.”

Felix Adler (1851–1933) German American professor of political and social ethics, rationalist, and lecturer

Section 7 : Spiritual Progress
Life and Destiny (1913)

Pain , Religion

“My nightmares are almost always about war - wandering the streets, searching for something that's lost forever. But it's possible for me to will myself to have pleasant dreams. For me, the most wonder fragrance in the world is new film. You open the canister for the first time and breathe deeply. That night, the same wonderful fragrance fills your dreams. It's grand.”

Ishirō Honda (1911–1993) Japanese film director

Honda, interviewed by James Bailey, Tokyo Journal, April 1991

Time , Night , World , War

“I think [if you] consume mainstream pop culture and don’t activate a search for any other niche outlets then you can fall into this feeling that you are inferior.”

Ali Wong (1982) American actress, comedian, and writer

On how Asian-Americans might circumvent the feeling of being underrepresented in mainstream culture in in “'God, I was disgusting!' – Ali Wong on why women's bodies are the last taboo” https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2019/oct/17/god-i-was-disgusting-ali-wong-on-why-womens-bodies-are-the-last-taboo in The Guardian (2019 Oct 17)

Thinking , Feeling

“Grief can be the garden of compassion. If you keep your heart open through everything, your pain can become your greatest ally in your life's search for love and wisdom.”

Rumi (1207–1273) Iranian poet

Life , Pain , Heart , Love

“With police wielding unprecedented powers to invade privacy,tap phones and conduct searches seemingly at random,our civil liberties are in a very precarious condition.”

Walter Cronkite (1916–2009) American broadcast journalist

Free the Airwaves! (2002)

“Jesus came into the world to reveal the whole dignity and nobility of the search for God, which is the deepest need of the human soul, and to meet the search halfway.”

Pope John Paul II (1920–2005) 264th Pope of the Catholic Church, saint

John Paul II, General Audience of 27 December 1978 https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/audiences/1978/documents/hf_jp-ii_aud_19781227.html
Other Quotes by Pope John Paul II

Soul , God , World

“The search for Truth is not about running away from the things of this world but about understanding their ephemeral nature. And more than that, it is about discovering our true nature as an inherent stillness from where even the subtlest movements of phenomena are being perceived.”

Mooji (1954) Jamaican spiritual teacher

Greater than Sky, Vaster than Space, (2018), Part I

Understanding , Nature , Truth , World

“Spirituality is the search for perfect understanding, for Self-discovery, for Truth, and it must take place right where you are. The Truth that you are searching for must already be right here, for it is timelessly present.”

Mooji (1954) Jamaican spiritual teacher

Greater than Sky, Vaster than Space, (2018), Part I

Understanding , Perfection , Truth

“Philosophy will fail forever its primary aim because it searches for something that does not exist.”

Menotti Lerro (1980) Italian poet

La filosofia fallirà per sempre il suo primario obiettivo, poiché ricerca qualcosa che non esiste.

“The search for necessary truths, truths that are not only true, but they couldn’t have been false.”

Charles Hartshorne (1897–2000) Philosopher

In the Veery journal interview in 1996, in reply to the question of "What is the most rewarding aspect of philosophy?" presented by Veery editor Steven Vita, later reprinted in 1997 in the Austin American-Statesman and then quoted from in The New York Times obituary entitled “Charles Hartshorne, Theologian, Is Dead; Proponent of an Activist God Was 103.”

Truth , Falseness

“And captains that we thought were dead,
And dreamers that we thought were dumb,
And voices that we thought were fled,
Arise, and call us, and we come;
And "search in thine own soul," they cry;
"For there, too, lurks thine enemy."”

Alfred Noyes (1880–1958) English poet

Search for the foe in thine own soul,
The sloth, the intellectual pride;
The trivial jest that veils the goal
For which our fathers lived and died;
The lawless dreams, the cynic Art,
That rend thy nobler self apart.
The Search-Lights
The Lord of Misrule and Other Poems (1915)

Soul , Dead , Cry

“When I fall Short of Words, My existence becomes speechless, searches for words passing here and there, in the hope that they may be found. When I ask someone to know about my words, it tells me the place of their mind, maybe some people are angry with me, who often do not mention me even once in their words.”

Shabdon Ka Jahan

People , Hope

“The search for alien artefacts in the Solar System should be a perfectly legitimate branch of science ('exoarchaeology'?). Unfortunately, it has been largely discredited by claims that such evidence has already been found - and has been deliberately suppressed by NASA!”

Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) British science fiction writer, science writer, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host

1990s, 3001: The Final Odyssey (1997), p. 97, Acknowledgements

Science

“The Method tends to be linear, almost like a 19th century mechanistic way of thinking in its search for a cause that produces the desired effect.”

Giovanni Morassutti (1980) Italian actor, theatre director and cultural entrepreneur.

From the essay Strasberg Legacy

Thinking , Way

“We are enraptured lover and insane, we searched the Beloved everywhere. When I smell the fragrance of His divinity, I get intoxicated in His lane.”

Bu Ali Shah Qalandar (1209–1324) Indian Sufi saint

Source: The Sayings and Teachings of the Great Mystics of Islam (2004), p. 271

Lovers

“Search your heart within where lies the key to all Divine mysteries, and where God has placed treasures of Divine, mystical and spiritual powers.”

Bu Ali Shah Qalandar (1209–1324) Indian Sufi saint

Source: The Sayings and Teachings of the Great Mystics of Islam (2004), p. 270

God , Heart

“For me writing is light, a radiance that captures everything in a fine profile. This light searches and illuminates, it is a safe place from which to uncover the emotional havoc of our experience. Light is a bright warmth which heals. Writing can be this kind of light.”

Yvonne Vera (1964–2005) Zimbabwean writer

Source: Good Readshttps://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/237227.Yvonne_Vera

Light

“A Khalifa is made only by God, not an Internet search engine.”

Mirza Masroor Ahmad (1950) spiritual leader of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community

Others
Source: Unveiling the story behind the great challenge https://www.alhakam.org/unveiling-the-story-behind-the-great-challenge/, 25th December 2020

God

“Paleoseismology... is science by backhoe. Researchers dig deep, straight-walled ditches and search up and down for signs of shaking.”

Shawna Vogel science writer

Naked Earth: the New Geophysics (1995)

Science

“We must search for ways ... so that Crimea may have the maximum degree of independence possible ... but be part of Ukraine.”

Viktor Yanukovych (1950) Ukrainian politician who was the President of Ukraine

Source: "AP Interview: Yanukovych admits mistakes on Crimea" in Associated Press https://apnews.com/article/8b795952e78a47a3beff026800eb508a (2 April 2014)

Way , Parting

“When we come together, we try to search for a collective effort in spite of our differences. We are split and scattered by the ocean, but we must find ways to tackle our issues.”

Soane Patita Paini Mafi (1961) Tongan Roman Catholic cardinal

Source: Caritas Oceania: united by faith and the ocean https://www.vaticannews.va/en/church/news/2021-07/caritas-oceania-annual-forum-interview-cardinal-mafi-tonga.html (31 July 2021)

Way , Effort

“Should it not, this essentially producing country, search all parts of the globe and seek to fight with other nations, by exploring in advance the countries likely to favor industries, by studying local needs and resources, by indicating the nature and time of the shipments to be made, etc.?”

Henri Alexis Brialmont (1821–1903) Belgian military engineer and writer (1821-1903)

Source: All the King's Men' A search for the colonial ideas of some advisers and "accomplices" of Leopold II (1853-1892). (Hannes Vanhauwaert), 5. A prospectus by the military Chazal and Brialmont, The military centipede Henri-Alexis Brialmont (1821-1893) http://www.ethesis.net/leopold_II/leopold_II.htm#2.%20 Brialmont in 1853 On The need for a stronger merchant fleet, protected by a naval force, he was amazed that it still did not exist in Belgium, despite the unbridled economic boom that Belgium had entered in, and that had one of the largest ports in Europe. CROKAERT, P. BRIALMONT, A. Brialmont, Eloge et mémoires, 399.

Study , Time , Country , Nature

“One thing was certain: when someone searched into secret places, he often came up with things he would rather not have found.”

Jack Vance book Night Lamp

Source: Night Lamp (1996), Chapter 5, section 3 (p. 81)

Secret

“The Devil is an echo
Of search unsatisfied.”

Alfred Austin (1835–1913) British writer and poet

Source: Fortunatus the Pessimist (1892), Fortunatus in Act I, sc. iii; p. 35.

“We have twenty thousand sites where people can go, and I urge people to, you can Google it or go onto any search engine and find out where free testing and the free testing site is available
..”

Kamala Harris (1964) United States Senator from California

2022, January 2022

People

“In trying to work for you, we might have failed to take good care of your souls as expected. We ask for your forgiveness in this Year of Mercy. We ask a bit a bit of amnesty from you. We should humbly acknowledge before God and his people the fact that in the history of our priesthood, the dark presence of sin is also found, so there is the need for us in this Year of Mercy to commit ourselves fully to the search for holiness.”

Robert Ndlovu (1955) Archbishop of Harare

Source: Archbishop of Harare celebrates Chrism Mass http://www.archivioradiovaticana.va/storico/2016/03/24/archbishop_of_harare_celebrates_chrism_mass/en-1217797 (24 March 2016)

Soul , God , History , People

“[T]he main work of life lies in carrying on worthily the great common task of civilization: to play one's due part in the enterprise of feeding some hundreds of millions of men, in seeing that they are protected against violence and fraud, that they have access to justice, and as far as may be to education, that they have some freedom to pursue life and happiness, and are not cut off altogether from the wonders and beauties of the world and the mind of man. To succeed in doing this is civilization: to fail is the defeat of civilization. For civilization is, ultimately, the process whereby a human society in search, as Aristotle puts it, of a "good life for man", gradually overcomes the obstacles, material and other, that stand in its way and makes man increasingly master of his environment.”

Gilbert Murray (1866–1957) Anglo-Australian scholar

1920s, The Ordeal of This Generation: The War, the League and the Future (1929)
Source: "Peace and Strife as Elements in Life: The Ideal of “Unhindered Activity”", pp. 37-38

Fraud , Life , Men , Freedom

“Where in the lily lurks the mind,
Where in the rose discern the soul?More mindless still, stream, pasture, lake;
The mountains yet more heartless seem. […]It is their silence that appals,
Their aspect motionless that awes,
When searching spirit vainly calls
On the effect to bare the Cause.”

Alfred Austin (1835–1913) British writer and poet

The Door of Humility (1906)
Source: "Switzerland", XXII, lines 15–18, 37–40; pp. 53–54.

Soul , Mountain , Silence

“I believe the most exquisite (fashion) designs should be showcased at the best locations. I constantly search for the most unique venues that will amaze the world.”

Jessica Minh Anh (1988) Vietnamese model

Jessica Minh Anh (2017) cited in: " From the Hoover Dam to Tower Bridge: Model makes the world her runway https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/jessica-minh-anh-runway-stunts/index.html" in CNN, 1 June 2017.

World , Fashion

“I joke that it took our family 100 years to travel one mile. But what a journey it has been. Our family story is the story of millions of families whose ancestors came to these shores from all around the world in search of freedom, opportunity, and equality.”

Gary Locke (1950) American politician

"Gary Locke keynotes anti-hate summit" in Northwest Asian Weekly https://nwasianweekly.com/2021/10/gary-locke-keynotes-anti-hate-summit/ (29 October 2021)

Freedom , World , Family , Travel

“What means more to the life of the individual in our own place in Time than this study of the nature of human nature, the search to discover pertinent traces of hidden impulses of life, to form continually new abstractions uplifting the life he lives?”

Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) American architect (1867-1959)

A Testament (1957)

Study , Time , Nature , Life

“The better you know your character, the more naturally it comes. But at the same time I don’t know that I ever want it to be easy, because the minute it gets easy I think I get too comfortable. And so I always am trying to search for what I can do to make my performance better”

Meaghan Martin (1992) American musician and actor

Interview: Meaghan Martin and Nick Braun from ABC Family’s ’10 Things I Hate About You’ https://www.fanbolt.com/5659/interview-meaghan-martin-and-nick-braun-from-abc-familys-10-things-i-hate-about-you/ (March 26, 2010)

Time , Nature , Thinking