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Instead of insight, maybe all a man gets is strength to wander for a while. Maybe the only gift is a chance to inquire, to know nothing for certain. An inheritance of wonder and nothing more.

— William Least Heat-Moon Blue Highways (1982)

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Luck

More quotes by William Least Heat-Moon

Other than to amuse himself, why should a man pretend to know where he's going or understand what he sees?

Blue Highways (1982)

What is it in man that for a long while lies unknown and unseen only one day to emerge and push him into a new land of the eye, a new region of the mind, a place he has never dreamed of?

Blue Highways (1982)

In a land of quince jelly, apple butter, apricot jam, blueberry preserves, pear conserves, and lemon marmalade, you always get grape jelly.

Blue Highways (1982)

Boredom lies only with the traveler's limited perception and his failure to explore deeply enough. After a while, I found my perception limited.

Blue Highways (1982)

I can't say, over the miles, that I had learned what I had wanted to know because I hadn't known what I wanted to know. But I did learn what I didn't know I wanted to know.

Blue Highways (1982)

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In the fields of observation chance favors only the prepared mind.

Louis Pasteur

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em.

William Shakespeare Twelfth Night (1601)

O Fortune, cruellest of heavenly powers,
Why make such game of this poor life of ours?

Horace Satires (-35)

Vicissitudes of fortune, which spares neither man nor the proudest of his works, which buries empires and cities in a common grave.

Edward Gibbon The History of the Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire (1776)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: William Least Heat-Moon (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.