“How oft he finds himself the last, who was the first to saddle.”
Pt. II, Lib. II, Ch. IX.
Guzmán de Alfarache (1599-1604)
“Though old the thought and oft expressed,
'Tis his at last who says it best.”
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'Tis his at last who says it best." by James Russell Lowell?
James Russell Lowell 175
American poet, critic, editor, and diplomat 1819–1891Related quotes
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
(1908–1961) French phenomenological philosopher
Source: In Praise of Philosophy (1963), p. 8
Albert Einstein
(1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity
From his "Autobiographische Skizze" (18 April 1955), original German version here http://philoscience.unibe.ch/documents/kursarchiv/WS99/Skizze.pdf. Translation from Subtle is the Lord: The Science and the Life of Albert Einstein by Abraham Pais (1982), p. 131 http://books.google.com/books?id=U2mO4nUunuwC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA131#v=onepage&q&f=false. Pais notes that when he said "during that year", he was referring to some time between October 1895 and early fall 1896.
Variant: "Innovation is not the product of logical thought, even though the final product is tied to a logical structure."
Original German version: Während dieses Jahres in Aarau kam mir die Frage: Wenn man einer Lichtwelle mit Lichtgeschwindigkeit nachläuft, so würde man ein zeitunabhängiges Wellenfeld vor sich haben. So etwas scheint es aber doch nicht zu geben! Dies war das erste kindliche Gedanken-Experiment, das mit der speziellen Relativitätstheorie zu tun hat. Das Erfinden ist kein Werk des logischen Denkens, wenn auch das Endprodukt an die logische Gestalt gebunden ist. ("Autobiographische Skizze", p. 10)
1950s
Context: During that year in Aarau the question came to me: If one runs after a light wave with [a velocity equal to the] light velocity, then one would encounter a time-independent wavefield. However, something like that does not seem to exist! This was the first juvenile thought experiment which has to do with the special theory of relativity. Invention is not the product of logical thought, even though the final product is tied to a logical structure.
Czeslaw Milosz
(1911–2004) Polish, poet, diplomat, prosaist, writer, and translator
Nobel lecture http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1980/milosz-lecture-en.html (8 December 1980)
Matthew Arnold
(1822–1888) English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools
Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse (1855)
“Second thoughts, they say, are best.”
John Dryden
(1631–1700) English poet and playwright of the XVIIth century
Act II, scene 2.
The Spanish Friar (1681)
David Wood
(1946) British philosopher, born 1946
Source: Philosophy At The Limit (1990), Chapter 3, Deconstruction and Criticism, p. 46
Jean Ingelow
(1820–1897) British writer
"Afterthought", reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
“I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free.”
Abraham Lincoln
(1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
1860s, Letter to Horace Greeley (1862)
Context: I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free.