Letter to John Tyndall (19 April 1851); letter 2411, edited by
Context: I have far more confidence in the one man who works mentally and bodily at a matter than in the six who merely talk about it — and I therefore hope and am fully persuaded that you are working. Nature is our kindest friend and best critic in experimental science if we only allow her intimations to fall unbiased on our minds. Nothing is so good as an experiment which, whilst it sets an error right, gives us (as a reward for our humility in being reproved) an absolute advancement in knowledge.
“Our most intimate friend is not he to whom we show the worst, but the best of our nature.”
“Political criticism is our enemies' best friend.”
Newsday, October 20, 2003
Source: Broca's Brain (1979), Chapter 24, “Gott and the Turtles” (p. 351)
Boston Book Review interview by Harvey Blume http://www.dorislessing.org/boston.html (February 1998)
Source: The Self Awakened: Pragmatism Unbound (2007), p. 32
Introductory
The Grammar of Science (1900)
As quoted by Ludwig Boltzmann in a letter to Nature (28 February 1895) http://books.google.com/books?id=PnUCAAAAIAAJ
Ego Dominus Tuus http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1478/, st. 4
The Wild Swans at Coole (1919)
Context: We have lit upon the gentle, sensitive mind
And lost the old nonchalance of the hand;
Whether we have chosen chisel, pen or brush,
We are but critics, or but half create,
Timid, entangled, empty and abashed,
Lacking the countenance of our friends.
