1950s, The Russell-Einstein Manifesto (1955)
“We cannot turn back. We cannot choose the dreams of unknowing. We shall, I expect, open the last door in the castle, even if it leads, perhaps because it leads, on to realities which are beyond the reach of human comprehension and control. And we shall do so with that desolate clairvoyance, so marvellously rendered in Bartok's music, because opening doors is the tragic merit of our identity.”
"Tomorrow"
In Bluebeard's Castle (1971)
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George Steiner 74
American writer 1929–2020Related quotes
“Is there beyond the silent night
An endless day?
Is death a door that leads to light?
We cannot say.”
"The Devil" (1899) http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38804/38804-h/38804-h.htm Section IX, "Conclusion: Declaration of the Free" Compare: "the door of Darkness", The Rubaiyat, stanza 64.
Introduction<!-- pp. 3-4 -->
The Idea of Progress: An Inquiry Into Its Origin and Growth (1921)
Context: Science has been advancing without interruption during the last three of four hundred years; every new discovery has led to new problems and new methods of solution, and opened up new fields for exploration. Hitherto men of science have not been compelled to halt, they have always found ways to advance further. But what assurance have we that they will not come up against impassable barriers?... Take biology or astronomy. How can we be sure that some day progress may not come to a dead pause, not because knowledge is exhausted, but because our resources for investigation are exhausted... It is an assumption, which cannot be verified, that we shall not reach a point in our knowledge of nature beyond which the human intellect is unqualified to pass.
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 582.
Source: undated quotes, Tàpies, Werke auf Papier 1943 – 2003,' (2004), p. 30.
Introduction to The Best American Short Stories of 1984 (1984)