“There is no study more difficult than that of physic: it exceeds, as a science, the comprehension of the human mind: and those who blunder onwards, without attempting to understand what they see, are often very nearly on a level with those, who depend too much on imperfect generalisations, applied to facts, which can scarcely be subjected to any well marked analogy. Hence it may happen, that talents and labour may become useless for want of a proper direction… To assist in furnishing the student with a sufficient direction… is the principal object of this work.”
Source: An Introduction to Medical Literature, Including a System of Practical Nosology (1823), p. 2
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Thomas Young (scientist) 28
English polymath 1773–1829Related quotes

Source: The Analects, Chapter VI

(1635) as quoted by W. W. Rouse Ball, A History of the Study of Mathematics at Cambridge https://books.google.com/books?id=Pl32YkKFIhsC (1889) pp. 41-42.
Source: "English and the Discipline of Ideas" (1920), p. 62

"Propaganda, American-style" http://www.zpub.com/un/chomsky.html in Propaganda Review, 1987.
Quotes 1960s-1980s, 1980s

La critique souvent n'est pas une science; c'est un métier, où il faut plus de santé que d'esprit, plus de travail que de capacité, plus d'habitude que de génie. Si elle vient d'un homme qui ait moins de discernement que de lecture, et qu'elle s'exerce sur de certains chapitres, elle corrompt et les lecteurs et l'écrivain.
Aphorism 63
Les Caractères (1688), Des Ouvrages de l'Esprit
Jay L. Lemke, " Teaching all the languages of science: Words, symbols, images, and actions http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/education/jlemke/papers/barcelon.htm." Conference on Science Education in Barcelona. 1998.