Quotes on the Unknown, the Uncertain & the Hidden

"People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar." ~ Thich Nhat Hanh (b. 1926)

"The difference between what the most and the least learned people know is inexpressibly trivial in relation to that which is unknown." ~ Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

"The supreme paradox of all thought is the attempt to discover something that thought cannot think." ~ Soren Kierkegaard (1813 - 1855)

"It appears that nature has hid at the bottom of our hearts talents and abilities unknown to us. It is only the passions that have the power of bringing them to light, and sometimes give us views more true and more perfect than art could possibly do." ~ François de la Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)

"And as imagination bodies forth the forms of things unknown, the poet's pen turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing a local habitation and a name." ~ Shakespeare (1564-1616)

"Once men are caught up in an event, they cease to be afraid. Only the unknown frightens men." ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1900-1944)

"A hidden connection is stronger than an obvious one." ~ Heraclitus (c.536-470 BC)  "Nature loves to hide." ~ Heraclitus (c.536-470 BC)

"There are things known, and there are things unknown, And in between are the Doors." ~ Jim Morrison

"One's own self is well hidden from one's own self; of all mines of treasure, one's own is the last to be dug up." ~ Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

"It is the mark of an educated mind to rest satisfied with the degree of precision which the nature of the subject admits and not to seek exactness where only an approximation is possible." ~ Aristotle (384 -322 BC)

"A likely impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing possibility." ~ Aristotle (384 -322 BC)

"When the mind is in a state of uncertainty the smallest impulse directs it to either side." ~ Terence (195/185 - 159 BC)

"Reasoning draws a conclusion and makes us grant the conclusion, but does not make the conclusion certain, nor does it remove doubt." ~ Roger Bacon (c.1214-1292)

"It is... easy to be certain.  One has only to be sufficiently vague." ~ C.S. Pierce (1839 - 1914)

"Because your brain uses information from the areas around the blind spot to make a reasonable guess about what the blind spot would see if only it weren't blind, and then your brain fills in the scene with this information.  That's right, it invents things, creates things, makes stuff up!  It doesn't consult you about this, doesn't seek your approval.  It just makes its best guess about the nature of the missing information and proceeds to fill in the scene..." ~ Daniel Gilbert (b. 1957)

"By far the greatest impediment and aberration of the human understanding arises from [the fact that]...   those things which strike the sense outweigh things which, although they may be more important, do not strike it directly.  Hence, contemplation usually ceases with seeing, so much so that little or no attention is paid to things invisible." ~ Sir Francis Bacon (1561 - 1626)

"Everyone who observes himself doubting observes a truth, and about that which he observes he is certain; therefore he is certain about a truth.  Everyone therefore who doubts whether truth exists has in himself a truth on which not to doubt.... Hence one who can doubt at all ought not to doubt the existence of truth." ~ St. Augustine (354 - 430)

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Comments

[Crisis Cartoon]

The most beautiful things in life are hidden ... love, faith and grace.

Ren

[Kent @ The Financial Philosopher]

Crisis Cartoon:

I agree that the most beautiful things in life are "hidden."

For most of us, these beautiful things, including our true self, become "hidden" because they are covered or buried by the physical world distractions of social conventions, language and media noise.

I certainly do not mean to be deterministic but helpful in guiding people in a meaningful direction.

"One's own self is well hidden from one's own self; of all mines of treasure, one's own is the last to be dug up." ~ Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

Thanks for sharing your thoughts...

[David]

Kent added:

"One's own self is well hidden from one's own self; of all mines of treasure, one's own is the last to be dug up." ~ Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

I recently picked up a copy of Hollywood producer Robert Evans' memoir, "The Kid Stays in the Picture".

While reading the book's forward the other night I came across a passage that (to my mind) really seemed to update Neitzsche's thought for the current age. Here it is:

"My fifth-grade teacher used to admonish his students that by the time we all reached adulthood we would have forfeited three-fourths of ourselves in order to 'be like other people'."

With all the distractions and frenzy of the modern world, I wonder if it's even harder for people to dig their way out today.