Mystery

Famous quotes containing the word mystery:

    A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.
    Charles Dickens (1812–1870)

    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)

    The butterfly’s attractiveness derives not only from colors and symmetry: deeper motives contribute to it. We would not think them so beautiful if they did not fly, or if they flew straight and briskly like bees, or if they stung, or above all if they did not enact the perturbing mystery of metamorphosis: the latter assumes in our eyes the value of a badly decoded message, a symbol, a sign.
    Primo Levi (1919–1987)