A Quote by Lincoln Steffens

The best picture has not yet been painted; the greatest poem is still unsung; the mightiest novel remains to be written; the divinest music has not been conceived, even by Bach. In science, probably ninety-nine percent of the knowable has not yet been discovered.

Lincoln Steffens

Quote Topics

Bach Been Best Best Picture Conceived Discovered Even Greatest Music Nine Ninety Ninety-Nine Percent Novel Painted Percent Picture Poem Remains Science Still Unsung Written

Quote Author

Lincoln Steffens
American - Journalist
April 6, 1866 - August 9, 1936

Nothing is done. Everything in the world remains to be done or done over. The greatest picture is not yet painted, the greatest play isn't written, the greatest poem is unsung. There isn't in all the world a perfect railroad, nor a good government, nor a sound law. Physics, mathematics, and especially the most advanced and exact of the sciences are being fundamentally revised. . . Psychology, economics, and sociology are awaiting a Darwin, whose work in turn is awaiting an Einstein.

Lincoln Steffens

In science, probably ninety-nine percent of the knowable has to be discovered. We know only a few streaks about astronomy. We are only beginning to imagine the force and composition of the atom. Physics has not yet found any indivisible matter, or psychology a sensible soul.

Lincoln Steffens

Music is, by far, the best art. Nothing even comes close. It's so immediate and emotional. In writing, maybe ninety percent of it is the unconscious and ten percent is control. In music, I think it's probably more like ninety-nine percent the unconscious. It's just a beautiful thing happening through you. And so, too, is writing a great story.

T.C. Boyle

The best verse hasn't been rhymed yet, The best house hasn't been planned, The highest peak hasn't been climbed yet, The mightiest rivers aren't spanned; Don't worry and fret, faint-hearted, The chances have just begun For the best jobs haven't been started, The best work hasn't been done.

Berton Braley

I've been so fortunate because I never really had ups and downs as far as my career. Ninety-nine percent of the time, I've been sold out all over the world.

Tony Bennett

Persistence isn't very glamorous. If genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration, then as a culture we tend to lionize the one percent. We love its flash and dazzle. But great power lies in the other ninety-nine percent.

Susan Cain

Give up on trying to be original. Every song has been sung, every picture has been painted, and every story has been told. The best one can do is sing, draw, or tell it again well.

Evan Mandery

The technology involved in making anything invisible is so infinitely complex that nine hundred and ninety-nine billion, nine hundred and ninety-nine million, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine times out of a trillion it is much simpler and more effective just to take the thing away and do without it.

Douglas Adams

Sex is the ... tremulous and bewildering and nerve-racking and delicious and myriad-adjectived soul-condition ... generally known as love. Ninety-nine point nine repeater percent of the world's literature has been devoted to its analysis. It's therefore of some importance.

William John Locke

Tarjei Vesaas has written the best Norwegian novel ever, 'The Birds' - it is absolutely wonderful: the prose is so simple and so subtle, and the story is so moving that it would have been counted amongst the great classics from the last century if it had been written in one of the major languages.

Karl Ove Knausgard

The great poems of heaven and hell have been written and the great poem of earth remains to be written.

Wallace Stevens

That's really always been the music that I've been in love with, always the music that I've written growing up. Even through Pentatonix, folk music has been really my heart and soul.

Avi Kaplan

The Ninety-Ninety Rule of Project Schedules - the first ninety percent of the task takes ninety percent of the time, and the last ten percent takes the other ninety percent.

Arthur Bloch

I have not always been painted in the best picture of being the best teammate. But if you ask my actual teammates, not maybe the media and the other people that don't like me, if you ask my actual teammates, they will always say that I've been that guy.