Quotations

“The partisans of Science define the aim of learning to be utility.”

Introducing his challenge to purely utilitarian accounts of education · Introductory Lecture, University College London, 1892

A.E.Housman

“Every exercise of our faculties, says Aristotle, has some good for its aim.”

Opening his argument by connecting learning with the pursuit of human good · Introductory Lecture, University College London, 1892

A.E.Housman

“Patriotism has a great name as a virtue, but in the sphere of intellect it is an unmitigated nuisance.”

Rejecting national loyalty when it interferes with impartial scholarship · Lecture, The Application of Thought to Textual Criticism, 1921

A.E.Housman

“Textual criticism is a science, and, since it comprises recension and emendation, it is also an art.”

Balancing systematic scholarship with the need for individual judgement · Lecture, The Application of Thought to Textual Criticism, 1921

A.E.Housman

“The sum of things to be known is inexhaustible, and however long we read we shall never come to the end of our story-book.”

Evoking knowledge as an endless source of discovery · Introductory Lecture, University College London, 1892

A.E.Housman

“The pleasure of discovery differs from other pleasures in this, that it is shadowed by no fear of satiety on the one hand or of frustration on the other.”

Celebrating discovery as a pleasure capable of continual renewal · Introductory Lecture, University College London, 1892

A.E.Housman

“The pursuit of knowledge, like the pursuit of righteousness, is part of man's duty to himself.”

Making intellectual growth a matter of personal duty · Introductory Lecture, University College London, 1892

A.E.Housman

“Let a man acquire knowledge not because it is useful or ornamental, but because it is knowledge, and therefore good for man to acquire.”

Defending study for its intrinsic rather than instrumental value · Introductory Lecture, University College London, 1892

A.E.Housman

“Curiosity, the desire to know things as they are, is a craving no less native to the being of man than the craving for food and drink.”

Presenting curiosity as a fundamental human appetite · Introductory Lecture, University College London, 1892

A.E.Housman

“The acquisition of knowledge needs no such justification: its true sanction is a much simpler affair, and inherent in itself.”

Defending learning as valuable independently of practical usefulness · Introductory Lecture, University College London, 1892

A.E.Housman

“The complexity of the universe is infinite, and the days of a man's life are threescore years and ten.”

Contrasting limitless knowledge with the brevity of human life · Introductory Lecture, University College London, 1892

A.E.Housman

“The brain and the womb are both centres of consciousness, equally important.”

Insisting on equal value for intellectual and embodied forms of knowledge · Essay, Notes on Thought and Vision

Hilda Doolittle

“I read books on logic and astronomy and could point out the planets and discuss on the nebulae of the Milky Way.”

His intellectual curiosity ranged far beyond literature · Autobiographical letter to Lewis Chase, 6 June 1917

Francis Ledwidge

“Actually if a writer needs a dictionary he should not write. He should have read the dictionary at least three times from beginning to end.”

An exaggerated but revealing statement of his belief in a writer's mastery of language · Letter, 20 March 1953

Ernest Hemingway

“Learning is a hell of a lot of fun. Don't see why can't keep it up all my life. Certainly plenty to learn.”

Expressing an enduring appetite for reading, study and intellectual growth · Letter to Malcolm Cowley, 14 November 1945

Ernest Hemingway

“I do, in fact, know nothing that cannot be known by any one who will go to the only fount of knowledge, experience.”

Grounding knowledge in lived experience rather than authority · Essay, Wings and the Child, Chapter I: Of Understanding

E. Nesbit

“The knowledge which we acquire by our own unaided efforts, is much more tenaciously retained by the memory, while the exertion necessary to gain it strengthens the understanding.”

Arguing that self-directed learning strengthens both memory and mind · Letter to Walter Scott, 17 March 1821

Sir Walter Scott

“We live in a mystery, and shall never be satisfied till we see Him as He is.”

Acknowledging the limits of human understanding in matters of faith · Letter to Mrs. Condict, 2 May 1876

Elizabeth Prentiss

“Above all, you go to a great school for self-knowledge.”

Making self-understanding the highest purpose of education · Essay, Eton Reform II, 1861

William Johnson Cory

“Nor need you regret the hours you spent on much that is forgotten, for the shadow of lost knowledge at least protects you from many illusions.”

Suggesting that forgotten learning can still shape judgement and understanding · Essay, Eton Reform II, 1861

William Johnson Cory

“A stubborn mind conduces as little to wisdom or even to knowledge, as a stubborn temper to happiness.”

Warning that intellectual inflexibility can obstruct both knowledge and wisdom · Prose, The Doctor

Robert Southey

“I merely contend that science is apt to be cold-hearted, and does not seem always to take into consideration the tortures she inflicts in her search for knowledge.”

Calling for compassion to accompany scientific inquiry, particularly where living creatures suffer · Essay, The Cruelty of Science, in Ponkapog Papers (1903)

Thomas Bailey Aldrich

“We often read of wonderful manifestations of memory, but they are always instances of the faculty working in some special direction. It is memory playing, like Paganini, on one string.”

Distinguishing exceptional feats of recollection from a genuinely broad and retentive memory · Ponkapog Papers, Leaves from a Note Book (1903)

Thomas Bailey Aldrich

“If you had lived upon scant means, compelled to support yourself, often being physically hungry in an endeavor to satisfy your mental hunger for knowledge”

Contrasting physical deprivation with an intense hunger for learning · Foreword to Plea of the Negro Soldier and a Hundred Other Poems, 1908

Charles Frederick White

Pronunciation

Also Known As

Definition

Detailed Definition

Example

Additional Notes

Related Terms

Topic: Knowledge