Courage Inspires: Those who would discover

I have on my book shelf, not one, but two copies of 100 Great Lives. I'll give a copy to one of my favourite communicators some day, but for now the stories of people who dreamed and dared inspire me.

Scientists and inventors from Archimedes to Orville Wright; ethical leaders from Buddha and Confucius to Marx and Gandhi; writers from Herodotus to Tagore; explorers from Marco Polo to Robert Falcon Scott; soldiers and statesmen from Alexander the Great to Sir Winston Churchill indicate the scope of the book, not to mention the artists, musicians and great women who claim their rightful place.

Why do some dream and go and do while others do not?
Why do some people think outside the lines, while others can only see the lines? I have too oft been constrained by the lines. Some would think not, but I know. Lines can be good, safe, appropriate. Lines can also restrict, contain and relegate.

A man is not old until his regrets take the place of his dreams.
John Barrymore

First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.
Epictetus

From Publishers Weekly

In Boorstin’s 1983 bestseller The Discoverers , the achievements of Galileo, Columbus, Darwin, Gutenberg and Freud emerged as upwellings of creativity and courage, ingenious acts of revolt against ingrained habit. This richly illustrated two-volume edition reveals the world as known to the discovers themselves. We see the tools of discovery–Egyptian obelisks, early clocks, Leeuwenhoek’s microscope, Mercator’s maps, botanical drawings from James Cook’s voyages–and glimpse the social, cultural and political background, made concrete in 550 pictures including paintings, sculpture, engravings and architecture. A photograph of 15th-century cast bronze type from Korea underscores an Eastern invention that could have changed the course of printing, perhaps of science and culture. In a feast for the mind and eye, itself a delightful adventure in discovery.

One that desires to excel should endeavor in those things that are in themselves most excellent.
Epictetus