All Quotes By Tag: Scholars

“Heroes and scholars represent the opposite extremes… The scholar struggles for the benefit of all humanity, sometimes to reduce physical effort, sometimes to reduce pain, and sometimes to postpone death, or at least render it more bearable. In contrast, the patriot sacrifices a rather substantial part of humanity for the sake of his own prestige. His statue is always erected on a pedestal of ruins and corpses… In contrast, all humanity crowns a scholar, love forms the pedestal of his statues, and his triumphs defy the desecration of time and the judgment of history.”

“The Scholars”Bald heads forgetful of their sins,Old, learned, respectable bald headsEdit and annotate the linesThat young men, tossing on their beds,Rhymed out in love’s despairTo flatter beauty’s ignorant ear.They’ll cough in the ink to the world’s end;Wear out the carpet with their shoesEarning respect; have no strange friend;If they have sinned nobody knows.Lord, what would they sayShould their Catullus walk that way?”

“The most intriguing people you will encounter in this life are the people who had insights about you, that you didn’t know about yourself.”

“It is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners.”

“See that the mind is honest, first; the rest may follow or not as God wills. [That] the fundamental treason to the mind … is the one fundamental treason which the scholar’s mind must not allow is the bond uniting all the Oxford people in the last resort.”

“To make a deliberate falsification for personal gain is the last, worst depth to which either scholar or artist can descend in work or life.(Letter to Muriel St. Clare Byrne, 8 September 1935)”

“The only ethical principle which has made science possible is that the truth shall be told all the time. If we do not penalize false statements made in error, we open up the way for false statements by intention. And a false statement of fact, made deliberately, is the most serious crime a scientist can commit.”

“An intellectual? Yes. And never deny it. An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. I like this, because I am happy to be both halves, the watcher and the watched. “Can they be brought together?” This is a practical question. We must get down to it. “I despise intelligence” really means: “I cannot bear my doubts.”