You will always find some Eskimos ready to instruct the Congolese on how to cope with heat waves.
Stanislaw Lec (1909-1966) Polish aphorist, poet, satirist
Unkempt Thoughts [Myśli nieuczesane] (1957) [tr. Gałązka (1962)]
(Source)
Quotations about:
expertise
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
Some free advice for you: Never fight an old man. They’ve been there, done that, written the book, made and starred in the movie, designed the T-shirt, and they’ve got no ego at all about how the fight gets won.
Experts are never right or wrong; they win or lose. Right and wrong are decided by proof; winning and losing are decided by who is doing the talking or talks the loudest, has the last, latest, or only word, and is quoted by reporters.
(Other Authors and Sources)
M. A. Zeidner, “Experts: A Definition” Quarterly Review of Doublespeak (Oct 1988)
An expert is a man who has stopped thinking. Why? He knows.
Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) American architect, interior designer, writer, educator [b. Frank Lincoln Wright]
In Geoffrey T Hellman, “Wright Revisited,” The New Yorker (8 Jun 1956)
(Source)
Wright used variations on this quotation throughout his life, e.g.:
The expert is usually a man who has stopped thinking and so is perfectly able to be utterly wrong for at least the rest of his lifetime. He has made up his mind, not upon principle, but upon expedient practice.
[Source, Frank Lloyd Wright: An Autobiography, Book 5 "Form" (1943)]
An expert? Generally a man who has stopped thinking because he knows!
[Source]
An expert is a man who has stopped thinking -- he knows.
[Source, in Earl Nesbit, Taliesin Reflections (2006)]
To me an expert is a man who has stopped thinking. He thinks he knows everything.
[Source, in Patrick J. Meehan, Truth Against the World (1987)]
Now, an "expert" is a man who has stopped thinking. He has had to stop thinking or he would be no expert. You can't call a man an "authority" who is growing and so changing his mind about things, can you? No, the expert has got to know or profess he knows. He's got to stand there and be knowledgeable! Well, too bad, because there's no such human except he be somewhat a phoney.
[Source, in Patrick J. Meehan, Truth Against the World (1987)]
An expert is a man who has stopped thinking because he knows and you can do nothing with him if you got a good idea.
[Source, in Patrick J. Meehan, The Master Architect (1984)
But don’t you know, there are some things that can beat smartness and foresight? Awkwardness and stupidity can. The best swordsman in the world doesn’t need to fear the second best swordsman in the world; no, the person for him to be afraid of is some ignorant antagonist who has never had a sword in his hand before; he doesn’t do the thing he ought to do, and so the expert isn’t prepared for him; he does the thing he ought not to do: and often it catches the expert out and ends him on the spot.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, ch. 34 (1889)
(Source)
Origin of more simplified versions of the phrase. More discussion: The Best Swordsman in the World Doesn’t Need To Fear the Second Best Swordsman – Quote Investigator.
Teaching takes skill and education and dedication. Home schooling as an idea is on a par with home dentistry.
Dick Cavett (b. 1936) American writer and critic
“Schooling Santorum,”New York Times (24 Feb 2012)
(Source)
I guess, when you get down to it, a loving touch compensates for an unskilled hand about everywhere except in an airplane cockpit.
Robert Brault (b. c. 1945) American aphorist, programmer
(Attributed)
My feeling about technique in art is that it has about the same value as technique in love-making. That is to say, on the one hand, heartfelt ineptitude has its appeal and, on the other hand, so does heartless skill; but what you want is passionate virtuosity.
John Barth (b. 1930) American writer
“An Interview with John Barth,” by Alan Prince and Ian Carruthers, Prism (Spring 1968)
(Source)
The quotation from the interview (originally credited only to Prince) was also included in the inside dust cover of Barth's short story collection, Lost in the Funhouse (1968), and is sometimes cited to that book.
The longer quote was paraphrased to the form in the graphic above on the dust cover of Charles B. Harris, Passionate Virtuosity: The Fiction of John Barth (1983):
In art as in lovemaking, heartfelt ineptitude has its appeal and so does heartless skill, but what you want is passionate virtuosity.
Harris later gives the full quotation inside his book.
Also used by Barth in "Dunyazadiad," Esquire (1972-07-01), reprinted in Chimera (1972):
Heartfelt ineptitude has its appeal, Dunyazade; so does heartless skill. But what you want is passionate virtuosity.
Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts.
Richard Feynman (1918-1988) American physicist
“What Is Science?” address, National Science Teachers Association, New York (1966)
(Source)
If I want to stop a research program I can always do it by getting a few experts to sit in on the subject, because they know right away that it was a fool thing to try in the first place.
Charles F. Kettering (1876-1958) American inventor, engineer, researcher, businessman
(Attributed)
Love what you do. Get good at it. Competence is a rare commodity in this day and age. And let the chips fall where they may.
Jon Stewart (b. 1962) American satirist, comedian, and television host. [b. Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz]
Commencement Address, College of William & Mary (2004-05-20)
(Source)
Where facts are few, experts are many.
(Other Authors and Sources)
Donald Gannon
The function of the expert is not to be more right than other people, but to be wrong for more sophisticated reasons.
David Butler (b. 1924) British social scientist, psephologist
The Observer (1969)