Quotations on Frontiers

Quotations Central

A garland of quotes about FRONTIERS collected by Rob Kall, excerpted from his collection of 10,000+ quotes on Disk-- Kall's Quotations; Wise Advice and Obsevations: Health & Psychology Quotation Data Base, searchable by word processor. For more information about the software, contact Rob Kall at 75162,615 or at 215-504-1700
(C) 1995 R. Kall
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FRONTIER, LIMITS, EXTREMES, ULTIMATE
Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of Nature. And it is because in the last analysis we ourselves are part of the mystery we are trying to solve.
Max Planck

ULTIMATE, AWARENESS, CONSCIOUSNESS, BODHI, CONNECTION
The visible extent of the world obviously surpasses us; but as we surpass little things, we believe ourselves capable of possessing them; and yet it requires no less capacity to reach nothingness than to reach the all. It requires infinite capacity for either; and it seems to me that whoever should have comprehended the ultimate principles of things might also arrive at a knowledge of the infinite. One depends upon the other, and the one leads to the other.
Pascal, Pensees

A human being is part of the whole, called by us "universe," a part limited in tim and space. He experiences himself, has thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest-- a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
Einstein

My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.
Einstein

PLAY, PLEASURE
Fun has no limits; it is like the human race and face; there is a family resemblance among all the species, but they all differ.
Haliburton

of all the limits of the understanding, the most grievous is that which prevents us from comprehending one another.
Madame De Stael-Holstein Reflections on Suicide

JUDGEMENT, COMMON SENSE
Every man is a fool for at least five minutes every day. Wisdom consists in not exceeding the limit.
Elbert Hubbard

FREEDOM
*Our best hope, both of a tolerable political harmony and of an inner peace, rests upon our ability to observe the limits of human freedom even while we responsibly exploit its creative possibilities.
Reinhold Niebuhr, The structure of Nations and Empires, 1959

A man who possesses keen intelligence, is little moved to wonder. And the same is true of him who lacks it. Wonder marks the limit of our knowledge and is often evidence of the imperfection of our minds, rather than of the perfection of exterior objects.
Vauvenargues203

From this hour, freedom!
From this hour I ordain myself loos'd of limits and imaginary lines,
Going where I list, my own master, total and absolute,
Listening to others, and considering well what they say,
Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating,
Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me.
I inhale great draughts of space;
The east and west are mine, and the north and south are mine.
I am larger, better than I thought;
I did not know I held so much goodness.
All seems beautiful to me;
I can repeat over to men and women, You have done such good to me, I would do the same
to you.
Whitman, Walt, Song of The Open Road

The human race built most nobly when limitations were greatest and therefore when most
was required of imagination to build at all. Limitations seem to have always been the
best friends of architecture.
Frank Lloyd Wright

"Men cease to interest us when we find their limitations."
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Circles

DEATH, LIMITS, INTROSPECT
Any comparison that we make of ourselves with the finite gives us pain.
Pascal, Pensees

IMAGINATION
POSSIBILITY, POTENTIAL, VISION
The fact is that we do not know enough to be pessimists. Throughout history, man's supposed limitations have given way before the power of the human imagination, the ability of the human intellect to conceive of and do what has never been done before.
The vision of life as it ought to be acts as a powerful magnet in the advance of the human race. Pessimism operates in a narrowed field of vision that fails to take into account the possibilities at the outer edges of experience.
Norman Cousins, foreword in Most of All They Taught Me Happiness, by Robert Muller

FRONTIER, VISION, LEADER
You shall be treated to the ironical smiles and mockings of those who remain behind you.
Whitman, Walt, Song of The Open Road