Puzzles Quotes
More Puzzles Quotes
Nothing puzzles me more than time and space; and yet nothing troubles me less, as I never think about them.
Charles Lamb— 1806 Letter to Thomas Manning, 2 Jan. Collected in E W Marrs (ed) Letters of Charles and Mary Lamb, vol.3 (1978).
The most ordinary things are to philosophy a source of insoluble puzzles. With infinite ingenuity it constructs a concept of space or time and then finds it absolutely impossible that there be objects in this space or that processes occur during this time.... the source of this kind of logic lies in excessive confidence in the so-called laws of thought.
ludwig boltzmann— S. Rajasekar, N.Athavan, "Ludwig Edward Boltzmann"
Veronica solves little puzzles because she, like all of us, cannot unravel the bigger ones.
joss whedon— Veronica Mars: The Complete First Season Reviewed by Joss Whedon[3]
One of the things that puzzles me is that so few people want to look at life as a totality and to recognize that death is no more extraordinary than birth. When they say it's the end of everything they don't seem to recognize that we came from somewhere and it would be very, very strange indeed to suppose that we're not going somewhere.
Robertson Davies— "You Should Face Up to Your Death, Says Author"
What puzzles me most is your criticism that he showed 'no sense of engagement'. I haven't met the expression before, and feel bound to comment on its totalitarian tang. Engagement not with the truth as the speaker apprehends it, but with the alleged opinion of the majority of listeners.
e. m. forster— Letter 400, to John Morris, 12 January 1953
If I gave it all up immediately, I'd lose my immortality. I've put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that's the only way of insuring one's immortality.
james joyce— Joyce's reply for a request for a plan of Ulysses, as quoted in James Joyce (1959) by Richard Ellmann
There's something in the human personality which resents things that are clear, and conversely, something which is attracted to puzzles, enigmas, and allegories.
Stanley Kubrick— Quoted in Kubrick : Inside a Film Artist's Maze (2000) by Thomas Allen Nelson, p.10
A logical theory may be tested by its capacity for dealing with puzzles, and it is a wholesome plan, in thinking about logic, to stock the mind with as many puzzles as possible, since these serve much the same purpose as is served by experiments in physical science.
bertrand russell— "On Denoting", Mind, Vol. 14, No. 56 (October 1905), pp. 479–493; as reprinted in Logic and Knowledge: Essays, 1901–1950, (1956).
Stick to the old truths and the old paths, and learn their di- vineness by sick-beds and in every-day work, and do not darken your mind with intellectual puzzles, which may breed disbelief, but can never breed vital religion or practical usefulness.
Charles Kingsley— p. 605. (Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895))
A logical theory may be tested by its capacity for dealing with puzzles, and it is a wholesome plan, in thinking about logic, to stock the mind with as many puzzles as possible, since these serve much the same purpose as is served by experiments in physical science.
— Bertrand Russell, "On Denoting", Mind, Vol. 14, No. 56 (October 1905), pp. 479–493; as reprinted in Logic and Knowledge: Essays, 1901–1950, (1956)
Who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life; But that the dread of something after death, The undiscover'd country from whose bourn No traveller returns, puzzles the will And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of?
— Act III, scene 1, line 76. ("These fardels" in folio).
Speaking for myself, I do not look upon wills as Chinese puzzles; they no doubt do present great difficulties, but I do not feel myself the serious difficulty which other learned Judges have.
— Chitty, J., In re Roper's Estate (1889), L. J. Rep. (N. S.) 58 C. D. 442.
It is the characteristic way of the wise to speak indirectly, to talk in figures, proverbs, and puzzles. All the sages of pre-modern cultures seem to share a belief in the ineffectiveness of open statements, the superficiality of direct communication. Wisdom, it seems, would not be so rare and difficult a thing if it could simply be “told” by one person to another.
— Arthur Melzer, “On the Pedagogical Motive for Esoteric Writing,” Journal of Politics, Vol. 69, Issue 4, November 2007, p. 1017
This fact, that all charges are integral multiples of a fundamental unit, is still one of the unexplained puzzles of fundamental physics. It does not in any way contradict electromagnetic theory, but it is not predicted by it, and until we have a more fundamental theory that explains it, we shall not feel that we really understand electromagnetic phenomena thoroughly. Presumably its explanation will not come until we understand quantum theory more thoroughly than we do at present.
— John Clarke Slater, Nathaniel Herman Frank (1969). Electromagnetism. Courier Dover Publications. p. 11. ISBN 0486622630.
