Quotes About Discovery

La vraie vie, la vie enfin découverte et éclaircie, la seule vie par conséquent pleinement vécue, c'est la littérature.

Thus I had already reached the conclusion that we are in no wise free in the presence of a work of art, that we do not create it as we please but that it pre-exists in us and we are compelled as though it were a law of nature to discover it because it is at once hidden from us and necessary.

There is a beauty in being surrounded by the foreign – seeing things from a new perspective, with new eyes

Once he has outgrown his youth, a man will rarely remain a prisoner to his insolence. He had thought it was the only way to behave; then he suddenly discovers that, even for a prince, there are such things as music, literature, not to speak of standing for the post of deputy.

We try to discover in things, which become precious to us on that account, the reflection of what our soul has projected on to them; we are disillusioned when we find that they are in reality devoid of the charm which they owed, in our minds, to the association of certain ideas; sometimes we mobilise all our spiritual forces in a glittering array in order to bring our influence to bear on other human beings who, we very well know, are situated outside ourselves where we can never reach them.

But in exchange for what our imagination leads us to expect and we give ourselves so much futile trouble trying to find, life gives us something which we were very far from imagining.

In point of fact, we always discover after the event that our adversaries had a reason for taking the side they do take, and one that does not depend on the degree to which that side is in the right, and that those who think as we do have been constrained to do so by, if their moral nature is too contemptible to be invoked, intelligence, and if they have no great acumen, uprightness.

We try to discover in things, which become precious to us on that account, the reflection of what our soul has projected on to them; we are disillusioned when we find that they are in reality devoid of the charm which they owed, in our minds, to the association of certain ideas.

We are not provided with wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can take for us, an effort which no one can spare us

The only true voyage of discovery, the only fountain of Eternal Youth, would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, to behold the universe through the eyes of another.

But sometimes it is just when everything seems to be lost that we experience a presentiment that may save us; one has knocked on all the doors which lead nowhere, and then, unwittingly, one pushes against the only one through which one may enter and for which one would have searched in vain for a hundred years, and it opens.

We do not receive wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness that no one else can take for us, that no one can spare us, for our wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world.

Then his jealousy rejoiced at the discovery, as though that jealousy had had an independent existence, fiercely egotistical, gluttonous of every thing that would feed its vitality, even at the expense of Swann himself.

Pretendem os poetas que tornamos a encontrar por um momento o que fomos outrora, quando entramos em certa casa, em certo jardim em que vivemos na juventude. São peregrinações muito arriscadas, essas, ao fim das quais se colhem tantas decepções como êxitos. Os lugares fixos, coevos de anos diferentes, é em nós mesmos que é melhor encontrá-los.

My life had been like a painter who climbs up a road overhanging a lake that is hidden from view by a screen of rocks and trees. Through a gap he glimpses it, he has it all there in front of him, he takes up his brushes.

The truth I am seeking is not in the drink, but in me

We do not receive wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness, which no one else can make for us, which no one can spare us, for our wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world.

Muitas vezes, é unicamente por falta de espírito criador que não se vai muito longe no sofrimento. E a mais terrível realidade nos concede, ao mesmo tempo que o sofrimento, a alegria de uma bela descoberta, porque só faz doar uma forma clara e nova ao que ruminávamos há muito sem desconfiar.

And then, while she was making them some orangeade, suddenly, just as when the reflector of a lamp that is badly fitted begins by casting all round an object, on the wall beyond it, huge and fantastic shadows which, in time, contract and are lost in the shadow of the object itself, all the terrible and disturbing ideas which he had formed of Odette melted away and vanished in the charming creature who stood there before his eyes.

É muita vez apenas por falta de espírito criador que não se vai bastante longe no sofrimento. E a realidade mais terrível dá, ao mesmo tempo que o sofrimento, a alegria de uma bela descoberta, porque não faz senão dar uma forma nova e clara ao que ruminávamos desde muito sem o saber.

In the case of Albertine, I felt that I should never discover anything, that, out of that tangled mass of details of fact and falsehood, I should never unravel the truth: and that it would always be so, unless I were to shut her up in prison (but prisoners escape) until the end.

My mother had to abandon the quest, but managed to extract from the restriction itself a further refinement of thought, as great poets do when the tyranny of rhyme forces them into the discovery of their finest lines.

But in compensation for what our imagination leaves us wanting and we give ourselves so much unnecessary trouble in trying to find, life does give us something which we were very far from imagining.

But first whom shall we send In search of this new world, whom shall we find Sufficient? Who shall tempt, with wand'ring feet The dark unbottomed infinite abyss And through the palpable obscure find out His uncouth way, or spread his aery flight Upborne with indefatigable wings Over the vast abrupt, ere he arrive The happy isle?