Peep Quotes (4 quotes)
Archaeology … is the Peeping Tom of the sciences. It is the sand-box of men who care not where they are going; they merely want to know where everybody else has been.
In syndicated column, published for example, as 'Trainer-Plane builder Turns Archaeologist', St. Petersburg Independent (15 Mar 1961), 5A. Also seen cited as 'Sifting the Sea for Time’s Treasures', NY Journal-American (14 Mar 1961). The story is about Ed Link who made his fortune inventing the Link Trainer, a flight simulator for pilots, then retired and turned his interests to underwater archaeology.
Now come the minstrels of the swamp and pool,
The peeping frogs who make the marshes ring
At sundown like some myriad-squeaking thing!
Thus with our senses Nature plays the fool.
The peeping frogs who make the marshes ring
At sundown like some myriad-squeaking thing!
Thus with our senses Nature plays the fool.
In 'Peeping Frogs', Memorial Volume: Selections from the Prose and Poetical Writings of the Late John Savary (1912), 57.
Scientists are the peeping toms at the keyhole of eternity.
In The Roots of Coincidence (1972), 140.
The night spread out of the east in a great flood, quenching the red sunlight in a single minute. We wriggled by breathless degrees deep into our sleeping bags. Our sole thought was of comfort; we were not alive to the beauty or the grandeur of our position; we did not reflect on the splendor of our elevation. A regret I shall always have is that I did not muster up the energy to spend a minute or two stargazing. One peep I did make between the tent flaps into the night, and I remember dimly an appalling wealth of stars, not pale and remote as they appear when viewed through the moisture-laden air of lower levels, but brilliant points of electric blue fire standing out almost stereoscopically. It was a sight an astronomer would have given much to see, and here were we lying dully in our sleeping bags concerned only with the importance of keeping warm and comfortable.
…...
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
