„Never leap into a lake without knowing what’s beneath the surface.“

„The underground of the city is like what's underground in people. Beneath the surface, it's boiling with monsters.“

—  Guillermo del Toro Mexican film director 1964

„For Knowledge is the swallow on the lake
That sees and stirs the surface-shadow there
But never yet hath dipt into the abysm“

—  Alfred, Lord Tennyson British poet laureate 1809 - 1892

From The Ancient Sage (1885), lines 37-39

„All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.“

—  Oscar Wilde, book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

„I can never drive my car over a bridge without thinking of suicide.
I can never look at a lake or an ocean without thinking of suicide.“

—  Charles Bukowski American writer 1920 - 1994

Source: The Captain is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship

„I prefer neurotic people. I like to hear rumblings beneath the surface.“

—  Stephen Sondheim American composer and lyricist 1930

„I never saw the sea.
I don't know if it's pretty,
I don't know if it's rough.
The sea doesn't matter to me.I saw the lake.
Yes, the lake.
The lake is large and also calm.The rain of colors
from the exploding afternoon
makes the lake shimmer
makes it a lake painted
by every color.
I never saw the sea.
I saw the lake ...“

—  Carlos Drummond de Andrade Brazilian poet 1902 - 1987

<p>Eu não vi o mar.
Não sei se o mar é bonito.
Não sei se ele é bravo.
O mar não me importa.</p><p>Eu vi a lagoa.
A lagoa, sim.
A lagoa é grande
e calma também.</p><p>Na chuva de cores
da tarde que explode,
a lagoa brilha.
A lagoa se pinta
de todas as cores.
Eu não vi o mar.
Eu vi a lagoa...</p>

"Lagoa" ["Lake"]
Alguma Poesia [Some Poetry] (1930)

„Our apparitions, the things you know us by, are simply childish. Beneath it is all dark, it is all spreading, it is unfathomably deep; but now and again we rise to the surface and that is what you see us by.“

—  Virginia Woolf, book To the Lighthouse

Source: To the Lighthouse

„Stop being an escapist! Stop being a surface liver who stays right in the froth of the surface. There are millions of these people, and they never find anything really worthwhile. Be willing to face life squarely and get down beneath the surface of life where the verities and realities are to be found.“

—  Peace Pilgrim American non-denominational spiritual teacher 1908 - 1981

Ch. 2 : My Spiritual Growing Up : My Steps Toward Inner Peace

„Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what next or how. The moment you know how, you begin to die a little. The artist never entirely knows. We guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark.“

—  Agnes de Mille American dancer and choreographer 1905 - 1993

„Of troubles know I none,
Of pleasures know I many —
I rove beneath the sun
Without a single penny.“

—  Eleanor Farjeon English children's writer 1881 - 1965

Vagrant Songs, II
Pan-Worship and Other Poems (1908)

„It's not as simple as that. Knowledge is necessary, too. An intuitive child couldn't accomplish anything without some knowledge. There will come a point in everyone's life, however, where only intuition can make the leap ahead, without ever knowing precisely how. One can never know why, but one must accept intuition as a fact.“

—  Albert Einstein German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity 1879 - 1955

In response to statement "You once told me that progress is made only by intuition, and not by the accumulation of knowledge."
Variant transcription from "Death of a Genius" in Life Magazine: "It is not quite so simple. Knowledge is necessary too. A child with great intuition could not grow up to become something worthwhile in life without some knowledge. However there comes a point in everyone's life where only intuition can make the leap ahead, without knowing precisely how.":
Source: Attributed in posthumous publications, p. 137

„The amount of racism, sexism, homophobia, and hatred in general that lies beneath the surface of the American dream is astounding and serious.“

—  Margaret Cho American stand-up comedian 1968

From Her Books, RACISM AND CIVIL RIGHTS

„Look beneath the surface; let not the several quality of a thing nor its worth escape thee.“

—  Marcus Aurelius, book Meditations

VI, 3
Original: (el) Ἔσω βλέπε· μηδενὸς πράγματος μήτε ἡ ἰδία ποιότης μήτε ἡ ἀξία παρατρεχέτω σε.
Source: Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book VI

„… to slip beneath the surface and soar along the silent bottom of the sea agile and shining in water honeycombed with light.“

—  Ellen Meloy American writer 1946 - 2004

„Reality is like a fruitcake; pretty enough to look at but with all sorts of nasty things lurking just beneath the surface.“

—  A. Lee Martinez, Gil's All Fright Diner

Source: Gil's All Fright Diner

„Everyone can feel the nothingness, the void, just beneath the surface of everyday routines and securities.“

—  John Zerzan American anarchist and primitivist philosopher and author 1943

Elements of Refusal (1988)

„Landscape - the external surface of the earth beneath the atmosphere… is merely an outward manifestation of most of the factors at work in the area.“

—  Richard Hartshorne American Geographer 1899 - 1992

Source: The Nature of Geography (1939), p. 216-217

„Nothing is so discreet as a young face, for nothing is less mobile; it has the serenity, the surface smoothness, and the freshness of a lake. There is no character in women’s faces before the age of thirty.“

—  Honoré de Balzac, book A Woman of Thirty

Rien n'est-il si discret qu'un jeune visage, parce que rien n'est plus immobile. La figure d'une jeune femme a le calme, le poli, la fraîcheur de la surface d'un lac. La physionomie des femmes ne commence qu'à trente ans.
Source: A Woman of Thirty (1842), Ch. VI: The Old Age of a Guilty Mother

„You can't be deep without a surface“

—  Jonathan Lethem, You Don't Love Me Yet

Source: You Don't Love Me Yet