Rollo May Quotes

It is remarkable that when great discoveries are effected, their simplicity always seems to detract from their originality: on these occasions we are reminded of the egg of Columbus!

The seeds of great discoveries are constantly floating around us, but they only take root in minds well-prepared to receive them.

It is no coincidence that so many religious beliefs date back to times when no science could possibly have accounted satisfactorily for many of the natural phenomena inspiring scripture and myths.

In Science, it is when we take some interest in the great discoverers and their lives that it becomes endurable, and only when we begin to trace the development of ideas that it becomes fascinating.

But I know also that still more interesting discoveries will be made that I have not the imagination to describe - and I am awaiting them, full of curiosity and enthusiasm.

Historically speaking all - or very nearly all - scientific theories originate from myths.

I usually find that the process of discovery is more interesting than the answers.

The more one observes, the more clearly does he see that it is in the soil of pure science that are found the origins of all our modern industry and commerce. In fact,our civilization is wholly built upon our scientific discoveries.

I don't even care what Bill Bryson writes about because he will make it interesting. I love "A Walk in the Woods," about the Appalachian Trail, but his most amazing book is "A Short History of Nearly Everything."

We have lived in a world where the discoveries of physics and genetics are far more awe-inspiring, as well as infinitely more liberating, than the claims of any religion.

As time passes and the more advanced science becomes, the more interesting it becomes.

The mysteries of Nature and of humanity are not lessened, but increased, by the discoveries of philosophic skill.

It is regrettable that a Dostoyevsky did not live near this most interesting of all decadents (Jesus Christ) - I mean someone who would have known how to sense the very stirring charm of such a mixture of the sublime, the sickly, and the childlike.

Through dreams a door is opened to mythology, since myths are of the nature of dreams, and that, as dreams arise from an inward world unknown to waking consciousness, so do myths: so, indeed, does life.

The future belongs to science and those who make friends with science.

Keep in mind, just because you don’t know the answer doesn’t mean that one does not exist. You simply haven’t discovered it yet.

We simulated the predator with livestock and the perennial grassland returned. Just put the whole back, and there it was. You'll find the scientific method never discovers anything. Observant, creative people make discoveries. But the scientific method protects us from cranks like me.

I never once made a discovery ... I speak without exaggeration that I have constructed three thousand different theories in connection with the electric light ... Yet in only two cases did my experiments prove the truth of my theory.

In science, mistakes always precede the truth

Most new discoveries are suddenly-seen things that were always there. A new idea is a light that illuminates presences which simply had no form before the light fell on them.

Discoveries are made by gluttons and addicts. The man who forgets to eat and sleep has an appetite for fact, for interrelations among causes.

Madame Curie didn't stumble upon radium by accident. She searched and experimented and sweated and suffered years before she found it. Success rarely is an accident.

The progress of science is the discovery at each step of a new order which gives unity to what had seemed unlike.

When or if answers are found, you can be assured those answers will lead to more questions. Is the troubling or wonderful? It depends on your view of your place in nature, your place among the stars; I suppose.

My specialty is mythology.There are artifacts like the hallows scattered through just about every mythology. However, what makes the Celtic hallows so interesting is that they are a self-contained group of objects.