Serendipitous Discovery Quotes

My work became an exploration of non-intention.

(The discovery of penicillin) was a triumph of accident, a fortunate occurrence which happened while I was working on a purely academic bacteriological problem.

I had the perfect accident for the perfect idea. I was rendered immobile where the only thing I could do is mess with my computer.

Then, one day, when you least expect it, the great adventure finds you.

Do search, but in order to find other than what is searched for.

Above all, it's never blind chance: it's a chance that is always planned, but also always surprising. And I need it in order to carry on, in order to eradicate my mistakes, to destroy what I've worked out wrong, to introduce something different and disruptive. I'm often astonished to find how much better chance is than I am.

I don't think anybody planned for me to be an actor. I didn't. I didn't know this was what I was going to do.

The least planned part of the journey, however, was the journey itself.

I've learned quite a lot, over the years, by avoiding what I was supposed to be learning.

Invention is arrived at by intelligent stumbling.

With a library it is easier to hope for serendipity than to look for a precise answer.

'Flying In A Blue Dream' was quite automatic. I was working on another song, and I took a break and picked up my acoustic guitar, tuned it strangely, and instantly wrote the tune. It's funny how you can struggle with one piece and write a better one in a minute. Usually, when things come easy, it means it's good.

I can't speak for anyone else, but in my case, I sort of fell into acting.

Name the greatest of all inventors. Accident.

It's like The Mold in Dr. Florey's Coat, about the discovery of penicillin. Out of these strange accidents come huge discoveries. A certain purple bleeds into red and all of a sudden you have something unexpected.

When I do research, I cast my net very widely and then snatch what feels right out of that. Occasionally I'll read a specific book for a specific book, but usually I'm trying to increase my general understanding.

I think that most people go to bookshops and have no idea what they want to buy. Somehow the books sit there, almost magically willing people to pick them up. The right person for the right book. Its as though they know whose life they need to be a part of, how they can make a difference, how they can teach a lesson, put a smile on a face at just the right time.

[T]hat I could find company and consolation and hope in an object pulled almost at random from a bookshelf--felt akin to an instance of religious grace.

It is true that my discovery of LSD was a chance discovery, but it was the outcome of planned experiments and these experiments took place in the framework of systematic pharmaceutical, chemical research. It could better be described as serendipity.

Serendipity... You will understand it better by the derivation than by the definition. I once read a silly fairy tale, called 'The Three Princes of Serendip': as their Highnesses traveled, they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of.

I play like I always used to, with no agenda. And, every once in a while, I will play something I really hadn't thought about or even intended to play. And I'll go, 'Whoa! What was that?'

It was by accident I got into wrestling. Somebody didn't show up, and I just filled in.

The sweet accident of coincidence is the best foundation on which to build.

I'm thankful for serendipitous moments in my life, where things could've gone the other way.

We can, if we so choose, wander aimlessly over the continent of the arbitrary. Rootless as some winged seed blown about on a serendipitous spring breeze.