“All explorers are seeking something they have lost. It is seldom that they find it, and more seldom still that the attainment brings them greater happiness than the quest.”
Source: The City and the Stars (1956), Chapter 23 (pp. 174-175)
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Arthur C. Clarke207
British science fiction writer, science writer, inventor, u… 1917–2008Related quotes
“It is seldom that we find either men or places such as we expect them.”
No. 58 (May 26, 1759)
The Idler (1758–1760)
Context: It is seldom that we find either men or places such as we expect them.... Yet it is necessary to hope, though hope should always be deluded, for hope itself is happiness, and its frustrations, however frequent, are yet less dreadful than its extinction.
“The innocent seldom find an uncomfortable pillow.”
William Cowper (1731–1800) (1731–1800) English poet and hymnodist
A misquotation of "The innocent seldom find an uneasy pillow", from James Fenimore Cooper's The Red Rover (1827), ch. 23.
Misattributed
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet
1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), Friendship
“5454. We seldom find out that we are flattered.”
Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)
“There is no greater grief than to find no happiness, but happiness in what is past.”
Jeanette Winterson (1959) English writer
Source: The Powerbook
“Hairdressers are professional gossips; when only the hands are busy, the tongue is seldom still.”
Stefan Zweig book The Post Office Girl
The Post Office Girl (published posthumously in 1982)
Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist
The Education of Henry Adams (1907)
