David

“Under normal conditions the research scientist is not an innovator but a solver of puzzles, and the puzzles upon which he concentrates are just those which he believes can be both stated and solved within the existing scientific tradition.”
― Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

“Levin had often noticed in arguments between even the most intelligent people that after enormous efforts, an enormous number of logical subtleties and words, the arguers would finally come to the awareness that what they had spent so long struggling to prove to each other had been known to them long, long before, from the beginning of the argument, but that they loved different things and therefore did not want to name what they loved, so as not to be challenged. He had often felt that sometimes during an argument you would understand what your opponent loves, and suddenly come to love the same thing yourself, and agree all at once, and then all reasonings would fall away as superfluous; and sometimes it was the other way round: you would finally say what you yourself love, for the sake of which you are inventing your reasonings, and if you happened to say it well and sincerely, the opponent would suddenly agree and stop arguing. That was the very thing he wanted to say.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“I was in too much haste, and now have no time left.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea

“To do the job which you’ve got really well; so well that you don’t lose your self-respect doing it’:”
― Ray Monk, Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius