“I observe, that of late Chymistry begins, as indeed it deserves, to be cultivated by Learned Men who before despis’d it; and to be pretended to by many who never cultivated it, that they may be thought not to ignore it: Whence it is come to passe, that divers Chymical Notions about Matters Philosophical are taken for granted and employ’d, and so adopted by very eminent Writers both Naturalists and Physitians. Now this I fear may prove somewhat prejudicial to the Advancement of solid Philosophy: For though I am a great Lover of Chymical Experiments, and though I have no mean esteem of divers Chymical Remedies, yet I distinguish these from their Notions about the causes of things, and their manner of Generation.”

— Robert Boyle , book The Sceptical Chymist

Source: The Sceptical Chymist (1661), Preface Introductory to the Following Treatise

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Robert Boyle 21

English natural philosopher, chemist, physicist, and invent… 1627–1691

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“Our books have informed us that the pre-eminence in chivalry and learning once belonged to Greece. Then chivalry passed to Rome, together with that highest learning which now has come to France. God grant that it may be cherished here, and that it may be made so welcome here that the honour which has taken refuge with us may never depart from France: God had awarded it as another's share, but of Greeks and Romans no more is heard, their fame is passed, and their glowing ash is dead.”

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“For it is owing to their wonder that men both now begin and at first began to philosophize; they wondered originally at the obvious difficulties, then advanced little by little and stated difficulties about the greater matters, e.g. about the phenomena of the moon and those of the sun and of the stars, and about the genesis of the universe. And a man who is puzzled and wonders thinks himself ignorant (whence even the lover of myth is in a sense a lover of Wisdom, for the myth is composed of wonders); therefore since they philosophized order to escape from ignorance, evidently they were pursuing science in order to know, and not for any utilitarian end.”

Aristotle book Metaphysics

Metaphysics by Aristotle – Book 1, ClassicalWisdom.com
The second sentence is in Metaphysics A 2, 928<sup>b</sup> 17–20, Aristotle: Metaphysics Beta: Symposium Aristotelicum, Michel Crubellier & Andre´ Laks, eds. (Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 4.
Metaphysics
Variant: [And] one who experiences a difficulty and who feels wonder thinks that he does not understand..., so that, if it is to escape ignorance that they have practised philosophy, then it is clearly for the sake of knowing, and not for any practical purpose, that they have pursued understanding.

“The phaenomena afforded by trades, are a part of the history of nature, and therefore may both challenge the naturalist's curiosity and add to his knowledge, Nor will it suffice to justify learned men in the neglect and contempt of this part of natural history, that the men, from whom it must be learned, are illiterate mechanicks… is indeed childish, and too unworthy of a philosopher, to be worthy of an honest answer.”

Robert Boyle (1627–1691) English natural philosopher, chemist, physicist, and inventor

Compare Francis Bacon's The Great Instauration
"That the Goods of Mankind May be Much Increased by the Naturalist's Insight into Trades" in the Works of Robert Boyle, (1772) Vol.3 as quoted in Clifford D. Conner, A People's History of Science (2005)

“I never turned recreant to intellectual culture, or ceased to consider the power and practice of analysis as an essential condition both of individual and of social improvement. But I thought that it had consequences which required to be corrected, by joining other kinds of cultivation with it. The maintenance of a due balance among the faculties, now seemed to me of primary importance. The cultivation of the feelings became one of the cardinal points in my ethical and philosophical creed.”

John Stuart Mill book Autobiography

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“What may be very entertaining in company with ignorant people may be tiresome to those who know more of the matter.”

James Burgh (1714–1775) British politician

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“I learned the lesson that great men cultivate love, and that only little men cherish a spirit of hatred. I learned that assistance given to the weak makes the one who gives it strong; and that oppression of the unfortunate makes one weak.”

Booker T. Washington book Up from Slavery

Source: 1900s, Up From Slavery (1901), Chapter XI: Making Their Beds Before They Could Lie On Them
Source: Up from Slavery

“The rich cannot come to the truth, neither the poor. Nor the people who have taken a vow of celibacy, of silence, of austerity. All that is determined by thought, put together sequentially by thought; it is all the cultivation of deliberate thought, of deliberate intent.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher

Last Talks at Saanen, 1985 (1987), p. 158
1980s
Context: The questioner says, how can the conditioned brain grasp the unlimited, which is beauty, love, and truth? What is the ground of compassion and intelligence, and can it come upon us — each one of us? Are you inviting compassion? Are you inviting intelligence? Are you inviting beauty, love, and truth? Are you trying to grasp it? I am asking you. Are you trying to grasp the quality of intelligence, compassion, the immense sense of beauty, the perfume of love and that truth which has no path to it? Is that what you are grasping — wanting to find out the ground upon which it dwells? Can the limited brain grasp this? You cannot possibly grasp it, hold it. You can do all kinds of meditation, fast, torture yourself, become terribly austere, having one suit, or one robe. All this has been done. The rich cannot come to the truth, neither the poor. Nor the people who have taken a vow of celibacy, of silence, of austerity. All that is determined by thought, put together sequentially by thought; it is all the cultivation of deliberate thought, of deliberate intent.

“Since a great part of those Learned Men, especially Physicians who have discerned the defects of the vulgar Philosophy, but are not yet come to understand and relish the Corpuscularian, have slid into the Doctrine of the Chymists; and since the Spagyrists are wont to pretend to make out all the Qualities of bodies from the Predominancy of some one of their three Hypostatical Principles, I suppose it may both keep my opinion from appearing too presumptuous, and (which is far more considerable) may make way for the fairer Reception of the Mechanical Hypothesis about Qualities, if I here intimate (though but briefly and in general) some of those defects, that I have observed in Chymists Explications of Qualities.”

Robert Boyle (1627–1691) English natural philosopher, chemist, physicist, and inventor

Source: Of the Imperfection of The Chymist's Doctrine of Qualities (1675)

“I wish that all nations may recover and retain their independence; that those which are overgrown may not advance beyond safe measures of power, that a salutary balance may be ever maintained among nations, and that our peace, commerce, and friendship, may be sought and cultivated by all.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/mtj:@field(DOCID+@lit(tj110158)) Thomas Leiper (12 June 1815). Published in The Works of Thomas Jefferson in Twelve Volumes http://oll.libertyfund.org/ToC/0054.php, Federal Edition, Paul Leicester Ford, ed., New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1904, Vol. 11 http://oll.libertyfund.org/Texts/Jefferson0136/Works/0054-11_Bk.pdf, pp. 477–478.
The sentence "I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power, the greater it will be." was used by US-President Barack Obama in his A New Beginning Speech.
1810s
Context: We concur in considering the government of England as totally without morality, insolent beyond bearing, inflated with vanity and ambition, aiming at the exclusive dominion of the sea, lost in corruption, of deep-rooted hatred towards us, hostile to liberty wherever it endeavors to show its head, and the eternal disturber of the peace of the world. In our estimate of Bonaparte, I suspect we differ. [... ] Our form of government is odious to him, as a standing contrast between republican and despotic rule; and as much from that hatred, as from ignorance in political economy, he had excluded intercourse between us and his people, by prohibiting the only articles they wanted from us, that is, cotton and tobacco. Whether the war we have had with England, and the achievements of that war, and the hope that we may become his instruments and partisans against that enemy, may induce him, in future, to tolerate our commercial intercourse with his people, is still to be seen. For my part, I wish that all nations may recover and retain their independence; that those which are overgrown may not advance beyond safe measures of power, that a salutary balance may be ever maintained among nations, and that our peace, commerce, and friendship, may be sought and cultivated by all. It is our business to manufacture for ourselves whatever we can, to keep our markets open for what we can spare or want; and the less we have to do with the amities or enmities of Europe, the better. Not in our day, but at no distant one, we may shake a rod over the heads of all, which may make the stoutest of them tremble. But I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power, the greater it will be.

“Even the ignorant may appear very worthy,
If they keep silent before the learned.”

Thiruvalluvar book Tirukkuṛaḷ

Verse XLI.3
Tirukkural

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Robert Boyle 21

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