Quotes About Discovery

indeed, Johannes Kepler fell into a state of self-described "sacred frenzy" when he found his laws of planetary motion—because those patterns seemed to be signs of God's handiwork.

math always involves both invention and discovery: we invent the concepts but discover their consequences.

Creation is intuitive; reason comes later.

Although the role of serendipity is familiar, what's not so well appreciated is how different serendipity is from luck. Serendipity is not just an apparent aptitude for making fortunate discoveries accidentally, as my dictionary defines it. Serendipitous discoveries are always made by people in a particular frame of mind, people who are focused and alert because they're searching for something. They just happen to find something else.

and out comes another empirical truth, possibly a new one, a fact about the universe that nobody knew before (like the existence of electromagnetic waves).

So he used calculus not only to predict the existence of electromagnetic waves but also to solve an age-old mystery: What was the nature of light? Light, he realized, was an electromagnetic wave.

Finding Louisa in her drawing-room was like discovering a kitten in the cupboard--not necessarily unwelcome, but still startling.

Boredom is the laboratory where new enthusiasms prepare themselves,

Wandering from room to room discovering another side to the moon.

He walks through the house of his past, hoping he'll find the right door, hoping he'll find the key.

W]e can discover the world, but we decide upon the truth.

We may never say, "I was looking for God, and I found him." We may only ever testify, "I was not looking for any God other than myself—and he found me." You did not work it out. Our seeking never does. He sought you out and he saved your soul, and this is the testimony we all share.

finding God brings meaning into every moment—I

GPS on the molecular level.

To uncover the plot of your story, don't ask what should happen, but what should go wrong. To uncover the meaning of your story, don't ask what the theme is, but rather, what is discovered. Characters making choices to resolve tension—that's your plot. If your protagonist has no goal, makes no choices, has no struggle to overcome, you have no plot.

To uncover the plot of your story, don't ask what should happen, but what should go wrong. To uncover the meaning of your story, don't ask what the theme is, but rather, what is discovered. Characters making choices to resolve tension—that's your plot.

Being right keeps you in place. Being wrong forces you to explore.

Most discoveries become imaginable at a very specific moment in history, after which point multiple people start to imagine them.

Darwin was constantly rereading his notes, discovering new implications.

The march of technology expands the space of possibility around us, but how we explore that space is up to us.

To really achieve anything, you have to be able to tolerate and enjoy risk. It has to become a challenge to look forward to. In all fields, to make exceptional discoveries you need risk—you're just never going to have a breakthrough without it.

If you're interested in mastery," says University of Cambridge, England, neuropsychologist Barbara Sahakian, "you have to learn this lesson. To really achieve anything, you have to be able to tolerate and enjoy risk. It has to become a challenge to look forward to. In all fields, to make exceptional discoveries you need risk—you're just never going to have a breakthrough without it.

It was clear from talking to them, that what kept them motivated was the quality of the experience they felt when they were involved with the activity. The feeling didn't come when they were relaxing, when they were taking drugs or alcohol, or when they were consuming the expensive privileges of wealth. Rather, it often involved painful, risky, difficult activities that stretched the person's capacity and involved an element of novelty and discovery.

Y]ou are here to learn something. Don't try to figure out what it is. This can be frustrating and unproductive.