WIST Quotations

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

Dave — Thu, 14 Sep 2023 22:38:58 +0000

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)]

Layton, Irving -- “Obs II,” The Whole Bloody Bird (1969)

Dave — Fri, 02 Jun 2017 01:29:42 +0000

If poetry is like an orgasm, an academic can be likened to someone who studies the passion-stains on the bedsheets.

Irving Layton (1912–2006) Romanian-Canadian poet [b. Israel Pincu Lazarovitch]
“Obs II,” The Whole Bloody Bird (1969)

Burke, Edmund -- A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful, 1.19 (1756)

Dave — Thu, 11 Dec 2014 13:25:23 +0000

The elevation of the mind ought to be the principal end of all our studies.

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman, orator, philosopher
A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful, 1.19 (1756)

Stoppard, Tom -- In Kenneth Tynan, “Tom Stoppard,” The New Yorker (19 Dec 1977)

Dave — Fri, 21 Nov 2014 13:02:39 +0000

I began my talk by saying that I had not written my plays for purposes of discussion. At once, I felt a ripple of panic run through the hall. I suddenly realised why. To everyone present, discussion was the whole point of drama. That was why the faculty had been endowed — that was why all those buildings had been put up! I had undermined the entire reason for their existence.

Tom Stoppard (1937–2025) Czech-English playwright and screenwriter
In Kenneth Tynan, “Tom Stoppard,” The New Yorker (19 Dec 1977)

Huxley, Aldous -- (Attributed)

Dave — Wed, 19 Nov 2014 13:24:26 +0000

An intellectual is a person who has discovered something more interesting than sex.

Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English novelist, essayist and critic
(Attributed)

The first found reference is after Huxley's death, and it's most likely based on a variant by someone else. More discussion here.

Acton, John Dalberg (Lord) -- Speech (1877-02-28), “The History of Freedom in Antiquity,” Bridgenorth Institute

Dave — Tue, 04 Mar 2014 14:55:33 +0000

Writers the most learned, the most accurate in details, and the soundest in tendency, frequently fall into a habit which can neither be cured nor pardoned — the habit of making history into the proof of their theories.

John Dalberg, Lord Acton (1834–1902) British historian, politician, writer
Speech (1877-02-28), “The History of Freedom in Antiquity,” Bridgenorth Institute

Emerson, Ralph Waldo -- Journal (1855-06)

Dave — Wed, 16 Oct 2013 12:29:26 +0000

A Scholar is a man with this inconvenience, that when you ask him his opinion on any matter, he must go home and look up his manuscripts to know.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
Journal (1855-06)