What a good thing Adam had--when he said a good thing, he knew nobody had said
it before.
- Mark Twain's Notebook
What is it that confers the noblest delight? What is that which swells a man's
breast with pride above that which any other experience can bring to him? Discovery!
To know that you are walking where none others have walked; that you are beholding
what human eye has not see before; that you are breathing a virgin atmosphere.
To give birth to an idea-an intellectual nugget, right under the dust of a field
that many a brain-plow had gone over before. To be the first--that is the idea.
To do something, say something, see something, before anybody else--these are
the things that confer a pleasure compared with other pleasures are tame and
commonplace, other ecstasies cheap and trivial. Lifetimes of ecstasy crowded
into a single moment.
- The Innocents Abroad
Quotations | Newspaper Articles | Special Features | Links | Search