“Any truth,” Chester said, “no matter how obscure, or seemingly unimportant, is a piece of the mosaic and a step toward completion.”
Source: Tomorrow Knight (1976), Chapter 8 (p. 83)
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Michael Kurland 35
American writer 1938Related quotes
“Scepticism is the first step towards truth.”
As quoted in The Anchor Book of French Quotations with English Translations (1963) by Norbert Gutermam
Pensées Philosophiques (1746)
Variant: A thing is not proved just because no one has ever questioned it. What has never been gone into impartially has never been properly gone into. Hence skepticism is the first step toward truth. It must be applied generally, because it is the touchstone.
Variant: The first step towards philosophy is incredulity.
Source: Pensées philosophiques
In Russian: Я считаю, что совершенно неважно, кто и как будет в партии голосовать; но вот что чрезвычайно важно, это - кто и как будет считать голоса.
Said in 1923, as quoted in The Memoirs of Stalin's Former Secretary http://www.panrus.com/books/details.php?langID=1&bookID=5905 (1992) by Boris Bazhanov [Saint Petersburg] (Борис Бажанов. Воспоминания бывшего секретаря Сталина). (Text online in Russian) http://lib.ru/MEMUARY/BAZHANOW/stalin.txt.
Variant (loose) translation: The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.
Contemporary witnesses
Source: Thoughts Selected from the Writings of Horace Mann (1872), p. 185
Context: No matter how seemingly unconnected with human affairs or remote from human interests a newly-discovered truth may appear to be, time and genius will some day make it minister to human welfare. When Dr. Franklin was once sceptically asked what was the use of some recondite and far-off truth which had just been brought to light, "What," said he, "is the use of babies?"
“It is completely unimportant. That is why it is so interesting.”
Source: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
2015, Remarks at Panama Civil Society Forum (April 2015)
Context: It's the dreamers -- no matter how humble or poor or seemingly powerless -- that are able to change the course of human events. We saw it in South Africa, where citizens stood up to the scourge of apartheid. We saw it in Europe, where Poles marched in Solidarity to help bring down the Iron Curtain. In Argentina, where mothers of the disappeared spoke out against the Dirty War. It’s the story of my country, where citizens worked to abolish slavery, and establish women’s rights and workers’ rights, and rights for gays and lesbians.
"Words Weird and Wonderful", in Castle of the Otter (1982), Reprinted in Gene Wolfe, Castle of Days (1992)
Nonfiction
Fall 1943
Diary entries (1914 - 1974)
Source: Journals Of Anais Nin Volume 3