Miguel de Unamuno Quotes

When I was young my Father used to tell me that the two most worthwhile pursuits in life were the pursuit of truth and of beauty and I believe that Alfred Nobel must have felt much the same when he gave these prizes for literature and the sciences.

Between truth and the search for it, I choose the second.

Science never gives up searching for truth, since it never claims to have achieved it. It is civilizing because it puts truth ahead of all else, including personal interests.

A burning itch to know is higher than a solemn vow to pursue truth. To feel the burning itch of curiosity requires both that you be ignorant, and that you desire to relinquish your ignorance.

The passion for seeking the truth for truth's sake can be kept alive only if we continue to seek the truth for truth's sake.

There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily

I search after truth, by which man never yet was harmed.

Men of the world who value the Way all turn to books. But books are nothing more than words. Words have value; what is of value in words is meaning. Meaning has something it is pursuing, but the thing that it is pursuing cannot be put into words and handed down. The world values words and hands down books but, though the world values them, I do not think them worth valuing. What the world takes to be values is not real value.

No doubt those who really founded modern science were usually those whose love of truth exceeded their love of power.

The inquiry of truth, which is the love-making, or the wooing of it, the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it, and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it, is the sovereign good of human nature.

Learning the truth has become my life's love.

The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be preferred to the presence of those who think they've found it.

It is more important that a proposition be interesting than that it be true.

The drive toward knowledge has a moral origin.

Seeking is a necessary preliminary to finding, and one who cannot endure the hardship of inquiry cannot expect to harvest the fruit of knowledge.

Some mathematician said that pleasure lies not in discovering the truth but in searching for it.

No pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage-ground of truth.

This is what I am learning, at 82 years old: the main thing is to be in love with the search for truth.

We should seek the truth without hesitation; and, if we refuse it, we show that we value the esteem of men more than the search for truth.

The average are addicted to leisure. The exceptional are obsessed with learning.

The excellence and inspiration of truth is in the pursuit, not in the mere having of it. The pursuit of all truth is a kind of gymnastics; a man swings from one truth with higher strength to gain another. The continual glory is the possibility opening before us.

In the pursuit of truth, intent is prior to content, or to the availability of it. The love of truth and the willingness to submit to its demands is the first step.

Was there anything more exciting in life than seeking answers?

Unless you have the courage to doubt you will never come to know the truth.