“Stupidity will then attach you to received opinions, and you will stick in the mud; or vanity will set you hunting for novelty, and you will find mare's-nests.” Warning that both conformity and novelty-seeking can obstruct the search for truth · Lecture, The Application of Thought to Textual Criticism, 1921 Criticism Truth Vanity
“The reader often shares the writer's prejudices, and is far too well pleased with his conclusions to examine either his premises or his reasoning.” A sharp description of how agreement can suppress critical scrutiny · Lecture, The Application of Thought to Textual Criticism, 1921 Criticism Reason Understanding
“The old unscientific days are everlasting; they are here and now.” Warning that intellectual fashions do not eliminate perennial human errors · Lecture, The Application of Thought to Textual Criticism, 1921 Criticism History Humanity
“The difference between an icicle and a red-hot poker is really much slighter than the difference between truth and falsehood or sense and nonsense.” Using a physical contrast to dramatise the gulf between sound and unsound reasoning · Lecture, The Application of Thought to Textual Criticism, 1921 Imagery Reason Truth
“If a dog hunted for fleas on mathematical principles, basing his researches on statistics of area and population, he would never catch a flea except by accident.” Mocking rigid method when observation and judgement are what a problem requires · Lecture, The Application of Thought to Textual Criticism, 1921 Criticism Humour Reason
“A textual critic engaged upon his business is not at all like Newton investigating the motions of the planets: he is much more like a dog hunting for fleas.” A comic metaphor for the practical and opportunistic nature of textual criticism · Lecture, The Application of Thought to Textual Criticism, 1921 Criticism Humour Metaphor
“We exercise textual criticism whenever we notice and correct a misprint.” Reducing an intimidating scholarly discipline to a familiar act of correction · Lecture, The Application of Thought to Textual Criticism, 1921 Criticism Simplicity Writing
“Other desires perish in their gratification, but the desire of knowledge never.” Contrasting intellectual curiosity with appetites exhausted by satisfaction · Introductory Lecture, University College London, 1892 Desire Knowledge Learning
“Kings have long abdicated that province; and we students are come into their inheritance: it is our honour to search out the things which God has concealed.” Giving scholarship the adventurous dignity once associated with kingship · Introductory Lecture, University College London, 1892 Discovery Knowledge Wonder
“There is no rivalry between the studies of Arts and Laws and Science but the rivalry of fellow soldiers in striving which can most victoriously achieve the common end of all.” Portraying different disciplines as allies in humanity's search for knowledge · Introductory Lecture, University College London, 1892 Community Education Knowledge
“We can all dwell together in unity without crying up our own pursuits or depreciating the pursuits of others on factitious grounds.” Calling for mutual respect between different fields of study · Introductory Lecture, University College London, 1892 Community Education Respect
“The comparative unpopularity of such learning renders it no less worthy of pursuit.” Defending specialised knowledge regardless of its popularity · Introductory Lecture, University College London, 1892 Independence Knowledge Learning
“We shall need to invent no pretexts for studying this subject or that.” Rejecting the demand that every intellectual pursuit justify itself practically · Introductory Lecture, University College London, 1892 Freedom Knowledge Learning
“As the years go by, comparative values are found to alter.” Observing how age changes the relative importance of life's pleasures · Introductory Lecture, University College London, 1892 Age Change Time
“As a prudent man puts money by to serve as a provision for the material wants of his old age, so too he needs to lay up against the end of his days provision for the intellect.” Presenting lifelong learning as preparation for the intellectual needs of old age · Introductory Lecture, University College London, 1892 Age Learning Mind
“The pleasure of learning and knowing, though not the keenest, is yet the least perishable of pleasures.” Celebrating learning as a pleasure unusually resistant to age and circumstance · Introductory Lecture, University College London, 1892 Age Happiness Learning
“The pleasures of the intellect are notoriously less vivid than either the pleasures of sense or the pleasures of the affections.” Recognising why intellectual pursuits can lose out to more immediate pleasures · Introductory Lecture, University College London, 1892 Emotion Knowledge Mind
“It is and it must in the long run be better for a man to see things as they are than to be ignorant of them.” Choosing difficult truth over comfortable ignorance · Introductory Lecture, University College London, 1892 Knowledge Truth Wisdom
“The pursuit of truth in some directions is even injurious to happiness, because it compels us to take leave of delusions which were pleasant while they lasted.” Acknowledging the emotional price that uncomfortable truths can exact · Introductory Lecture, University College London, 1892 Belief Happiness Truth
“Entire happiness is not attainable either by this or by any other method.” Rejecting promises that any single pursuit can provide complete happiness · Introductory Lecture, University College London, 1892 Happiness Life Wisdom
“Knowledge resembles virtue in this, that it is not merely a means of procuring good, but is good in itself simply.” Defending knowledge as intrinsically rather than merely instrumentally valuable · Introductory Lecture, University College London, 1892 Knowledge Learning Morality
“Nature does not implant desires for nothing, nor endow us with faculties in vain.” Arguing that natural human capacities invite their own fulfilment · Introductory Lecture, University College London, 1892 Growth Humanity Nature
“The desire of knowledge, stifle it though you may, is none the less originally born with every man.” Treating curiosity as an innate element of human nature · Introductory Lecture, University College London, 1892 Humanity Instinct Knowledge
“Though the man does not die altogether, part of him dies, part of him starves to death.” Describing the loss caused when a natural hunger for knowledge goes unfed · Introductory Lecture, University College London, 1892 Growth Knowledge Life
