1st, Begin with Mistakes

[Brad Rose]

“It is necessary to any originality to have the courage to be an amateur.” –Wallace Stevens

[Bob Clay]

"It takes a wonderful brain and exquisite senses to produce a few stupid ideas."
George Santayana

[Michael Brown]

Just get it down on paper, and then we'll see what to do with it.
- Maxwell Perkins

[Bob Clay]

"If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it."
Albert Einstein

[Brad Rose]

I really like this one by Einstein, Bob. He also said that "Things should be made as simple as possible, but not any simpler," which seems apropos in this era of reductionism and over-simplification

[KAWFEEEE!]

Einstein also said, "you cannot solve problems with the same level of thinking that created them."

[Bob Clay]

At the risk of making this discussion an Einsteinian discourse, there is another quote concerning a problem (which sadly, despite the end of the 'Cold War' does not seem to have gone away).

"The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one."
Albert Einstein

[Bob Clay]

Another great scientist who said things which made me wonder and marvel was the late Richard Feynman, possibly one of the most entertaining scientists ever (U Tube viewing will confirm that).

Typically:

I don't feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without having any purpose, which is the way it really is as far as I can tell, possibly, it doesn't frighten me.
Richard Feynman.

It is much more likely, that the reports of flying saucers are the results of the known irrational characteristics of terrestrial intelligence rather than the unknown rational effort of extra-terrestrial intelligence.
Richard Feynman

I can live with doubt, and uncertainty, and not knowing. I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong.
Richard Feynman

[Brad Rose]

Thanks Bob. I like the first and third quotes the best. I think these appeal to my "existential" side, because I share the sentiment that I'd rather not know, than now something incorrectly, falsely. Doubt is hard to live with, but untruth seems to me a case of "that way madness lies." I think, generally humans are built for truth...at some evolutionary level anyway. If we (the species) didn't have a pretty accurate "map" of the world we probably wouldn't survive, or wouldn't have survived as long as we have. (Of course the is always room for improvement, more accurate "maps".) I Like the Feynman quotes. Thanks for sharing them.

[Bob Clay]

It just occurred to me .... if Einstein had been dyslexic,

would M have equalled E times C squared ?

(I think that means the Universe would have been one solid block, or sphere, or ..... my brain hurts).