Ambitious men spend their youth in rendering themselves worthy of patronage; it is their great mistake. While the foolish creature...s are laying in stores of knowledge and energy, so that they shall not sink under the weight of responsible posts that recede from them, schemers come and go who are wealthy in words and destitute of ideas, astonish the ignorant, and creep into the confidence of those who have a little knowledge.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The tranquility and peace that a scholar needs is something as sweet and exhilarating as love. Unspeakable joys are showered on us... by the exertion of our mental faculties; the quest of ideas, and the tranquil contemplation of knowledge; delights indescribable, because purely intellectual and impalpable to our senses.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I always looked to about thirty as the barrier of any real or fierce delight in the passions, and determined to work them out in t...he younger ore and better veins of the mine--and I flatter myself (perhaps) that I have pretty well done so--and now the dross is coming.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
For all the injustices in our past and our present, we have to believe that in the free exchange of ideas, justice will prevail ov...er injustice, tolerance over intolerance and progress over reaction.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A religion, that is, a true religion, must consist of ideas and facts both; not of ideas alone without facts, for then it would be... mere Philosophy;Mnor of facts alone without ideas, of which those facts are symbols, or out of which they arise, or upon which they are grounded: for then it would be mere History.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
...I knew I wanted to be permanently self-supporting and I vaguely thought I might work somewhere in the realm of ideas. I felt th...at I had within me an undeveloped fount of ideas. I did not know exactly what my ideas were, but whatever they were I wanted to convert people to them.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A set of ideas, a point of view, a frame of reference is in space only an intersection, the state of affairs at some given moment ...in the consciousness of one man or many men, but in time it has evolving form, virtually organic extension. In time ideas can be thought of as sprouting, growing, maturing, bringing forth seed and dying like plants.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
He is a strong man who can hold down his opinion. A man cannot utter two or three sentences, without disclosing to intelligent ear...s precisely where he stands in life and thought, namely, whether in the kingdom of the senses and the understanding, or, in that of ideas and imagination, in the realm of intuitions and duty.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We must continually remind students in the classroom that expression of different opinions and dissenting ideas affirms the intell...ectual process. We should forcefully explain that our role is not to teach them to think as we do but rather to teach them, by example, the importance of taking a stance that is rooted in rigorous engagement with the full range of ideas about a topic.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
... literature is my Utopia. Here I am not disfranchised. No barrier of the senses shuts me out from the sweet, gracious discourse... of my book-friends. They talk to me without embarrassment or awkwardness.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »