Sir James Jeans...on the quest for knowledge
Yet we may reflect that physics and philosophy are, at most, a few thousand years old, but probably have lives of thousands of millions of years streching away in front of them. They are only just beginning to get under way, and we are still, in Newton's words, like children playing with pebbles on the seashore, while the great ocean of truth rolls, unexplored, beyond our reach. It can hardly be a matter for surprise that our race has not succeeded in solving any large part of its most difficult problems in the first millionth part of its existance. Perhaps life would be a duller affair if it had, for to many it is not knowledge, but the quest for knowledge, that gives the greater interest to thought - to travel hopefully is better than to arrive.
Physics and Philosophy, 1942