A professor can never better distinguish himself in his work than by encouraging a clever pupil, for the true discoverers are among them, as comets amongst the stars.

Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778) Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, physician [Carl von Linné, Carolus Linnæus]

Quoted in Theodor Magnus Fries, Linnaeus, ch. 10 “Pupils” (1903) [ed./tr. B. J. Jackson (1923)]
    (Source)