Mystery

Famous quotes containing the word mystery:

    “The Heavens. Once an object of superstition, awe and fear. Now a vast region for growing knowledge. The distance of Venus, the atmosphere of Mars, the size of Jupiter, and the speed of Mercury. All this and more we know. But their greatest mystery the heavens have kept a secret. What sort of life, if any, inhabits these other planets? Human life, like ours? Or life extremely lower in the scale. Or dangerously higher.”
    —Richard Blake, and William Cameron Menzies. Narrator, Invaders from Mars, at the opening of the movie (1953)

    “Like most vigorous-minded men, seeing that there was no stopping-place between dogma and negation, he preferred to accept dogma. Of all weaknesses he most disliked timed and half-hearted faith. He would rather have jumped at once to Strong’s pure denial, than yield an inch to the argument that a mystery was to be paltered with because it could not be explained.”
    —Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)

    “There is no kind of herb, but somebody or other says that it is good. I am very glad to hear it. It reminds me of the first chapter of Genesis. But how should they know that it is good? That is the mystery to me. I am always agreeably disappointed; it is incredible that they should have found it out.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)