Quests quotes
221 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Browse quotes that often appear alongside quests — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"The Quest of the Holy Grail, the Search for the Stone of the Philosophers-by whatever name we choose to call the Great Work-is therefore endless. Success only opens up new avenues of brilliant possibility."
"The need of reason is not inspired by the quest for truth but by the quest for meaning. And truth and meaning are not the same. The basic fallacy , taking precedence over all specific metaphysical fallacies, is to interpret meaning on the model of truth."
"We do not want our world to perish. But in our quest for knowledge, century by century, we have placed all our trust in a cold, impartial intellect which only brings us nearer to destruction."
"A quest for knowledge is not a war with faith; spirituality is not usually an infelicitous amalgam of superstition and philistinism; and moral relativism, taken outside midfield, leads inexorably both to heresy and to secular wickedness, which are often identical."
"I resolved from the beginning of my quest that I would not be misled by sentiment and desire into beliefs for which there was no good evidence."
"If you are losing your peace in your quest for peace, you are not on the road to peace. The road to peace is peace."
"The real reason for a quest is always self-knowledge."
"Darkness is your candle. Your boundaries are your quest."
"Where man had been, in every place he left, garbage remained. Even in his pursuit of the ultimate truth and quest for his God, he produced garbage. By his garbage, which lay stratum upon stratum, he could always - one had only to dig - be known. For more long-lived than man is his refuse. Garbage alone lives after him."
"O speculators about perpetual motion, how many vain chimeras have you created in the like quest? Go and take your place with the seekers after gold."
"For those in whom a local mythology still works, there is an experience both of accord with the social order, and of harmony with the universe. For those, however, in whom the authorized signs no longer work-or, if working, produce deviant effects-there follows inevitably a sense both of dissociation from the local social nexus and of quest, within and without, for life, which the brain will take to be for 'meaning'."
"In other searchings it might be the object of the quest that brought satisfaction, or it might be something incidental that one got on the way; but in religion, desire was fulfilment, it was the seeking itself that rewarded."
"The instruments for the quest for Truth are as simple as they are difficult."
"Everything can be found at sea according to the spirit of your quest."
"Violence is the quest for identity. When identity disappears with technological innovation, violence is the natural recourse."
"Freedom is acquired by conquest, not by gift. It must be pursued constantly and responsibly. Freedom is not an ideal located outside of man; nor is it an idea which becomes myth. It is rather the indispensable condition for the quest for human completion."
"The fear of being deceived is the vulgar version of the quest for Truth."
"Those who have matured spiritually, now put service to others at the center of their quest and of their lives."
"For me, writing is not a search for explanations but a ramble in quest of what informs a place, a hunt for equivalents."
"The blind quest for cash is a fool's errand."
