“I believe mysticism is a very serious endeavor. One must be equipped for it. One doesn't study calculus before studying arithmetic.”

— Elie Wiesel

As quoted in "10 Questions for Elie Wiesel" by Jeff Chu in TIME (22 January 2006) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1151803,00.html
Context: I believe mysticism is a very serious endeavor. One must be equipped for it. One doesn't study calculus before studying arithmetic. In my tradition, one must wait until one has learned a lot of Bible and Talmud and the Prophets to handle mysticism. This isn't instant coffee. There is no instant mysticism.

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Elie Wiesel 155

writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and … 1928–2016

Marilyn vos Savant (1946) US American magazine columnist, author and lecturer

As quoted in Courage: the heart and spirit of every woman : reclaiming the forgotten virtue (2001) by Sandra Ford Walston

“A mind of moderate capacity which closely pursues one study must infallibly arrive at great proficiency in that study.”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus

Source: Frankenstein

“In order to improve your game you must study the endgame before anything else; for, whereas the endings can be studied and mastered by themselves, the middlegame and the opening must be studied in relation to the endgame.”

José Raúl Capablanca (1888–1942) Cuban chess player

Last lectures (1966), p. 19

“.. when making a painting after a study, it costs me a lot of effort to follow this study very well. One is very much inclined to make something different, so-called better, and that's why people usually get confused. A good outdoor-study has a breath of nature in it which must not be neglected or destroyed. You have to get everything out of that study and not just a third or half. If you can really improve one or the other: a la bonheur, but otherwise it is advisable to follow the study obediently as a guide.”

Willem Roelofs (1822–1897) Dutch painter and entomologist (1822-1897)

translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek
(original Dutch: citaat van Willem Roelofs, in het Nederlands:) ..groote moeite kost het [me om] bij het maken van een schilderij naar een studie, deze werkelijk goed te volgen. Men is maar al te zeer geneigd, er iets anders, zoogenaamd iets beters, van te maken, en daardoor geraakt men meestal juist van de wijs. Een goede buiten-studie heeft een adem der natuur in zich, dien men niet mag verwaarloozen of vernietigen. Men moet uit zo'n studie alles halen, wat er in zit en niet een derde of de helft. Kan men waarlijk het een of ander verbeteren, a la bonheur, maar anders is het raadzaam, de studie gehoorzaam te volgen als gids.
Quote of Roelofs; recorded and cited by his student nl:Frans Smissaert in 1891, as quoted in Zó Hollands - Het Hollandse landschap in de Nederlandse kunst sinds 1850, Antoon Erftemeijer https://www.franshalsmuseum.nl/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/zohollands_eindversie_def_1.pdf; Frans Hals museum | De Hallen, Haarlem 2011, p. 16
undated quotes

“Instinct and study; love and hate;
Audacity — reverence. These must mate,
And fuse with Jacob’s mystic heart,
To wrestle with the angel — Art.”

Herman Melville (1818–1891) American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet

Timoleon http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1018&context=libraryscience, Art (1891)

“Before the spirit could seek into it, the mind must. She studied the tensor equations as once she studied the sutras, she meditated upon the koans of science, and at last she began to feel her oneness with all that was, and in the vision find peace.”

Poul Anderson book The Boat of a Million Years

Source: The Boat of a Million Years (1989), Chapter 19 “Thule”, Section 18 (p. 449)

“The method of arithmetical teaching]] is perhaps the best understood of any of the methods concerned with elementary studies.”

Alexander Bain (1818–1903) Scottish philosopher and educationalist

Source: Education as a Science, 1898, p. 288.

“You will study the wisdom of the past, for in a wilderness of conflicting counsels, a trail has there been blazed. You will study the life of mankind, for this is the life you must order, and, to order with wisdom, must know. You will study the precepts of justice, for these are the truths that through you shall come to their hour of triumph. Here is the high emprise, the fine endeavor, the splendid possibility of achievement, to which I summon you and bid you welcome.”

Benjamin N. Cardozo (1870–1938) United States federal judge

Excerpt from speech delivered at the 74th commencement of the Albany Law School on June 10, 1925, which is reproduced on a gigantic plaque on the west side (facing the setting sun, as if to say, "Go West, young man.") of the UC Berkeley School of Law's main building, Boalt Hall.
Other writings

“In right knowledge the study of man must proceed on parallel lines with the study of the world, and the study of the world must run parallel with the study of man.”

G. I. Gurdjieff (1866–1949) influential spiritual teacher, Armenian philosopher, composer and writer

In Search of the Miraculous (1949)

“I have throughout introduced the Integral Calculus in connexion with the Differential Calculus. …Is it always proper to learn every branch of a direct subject before anything connected with the inverse relation is considered? If so why are not multiplication and involution in arithmetic made to follow addition and precede subtraction?”

Augustus De Morgan (1806–1871) British mathematician, philosopher and university teacher (1806-1871)

The portion of the Integral Calculus, which properly belongs to any given portion of the Differential Calculus increases its power a hundred-fold...
The Differential and Integral Calculus (1836)

“I believe mysticism is a very serious endeavor. One must be equipped for it. One doesn't study calculus before studying arithmetic.”

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