49 Quotes About Scholars

It is the vice of the journalist, I once wrote, to think that history can always be reduced to experience, and of the scholar to think that experience can always be reduced to history. History and experience are far more frequently out of sync, or running on parallel tracks.

For scholars and laymen alike it is not philosophy but active experience in mathematics itself that can alone answer the question: What is mathematics?

A dreamer with high self esteem would start his or her life aiming for high ambitions and end his or her life with successful accomplishments that can remain as a legacy forever.

The truest knowledge is the fear of God.

Intelligence is not expecting people to understand what your intent is; it is anticipating how it will be perceived.

Everything is like a wall. Said a scholar to the troll. Bang your head to go on through. Then you'll see, there is no queue.

Academia is the death of cinema. It is the very opposite of passion. Film is not the art of scholars, but of illiterates.

Grown children (an oxymoron, I realize) veer instinctively to extremes: the young scholar is much more a pedant than his older counterpart. And I, being young myself, took these pronouncements of Henry's very seriously. I doubt if Milton himself could have impressed me more.

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.