Quotes about studying
page 16

William James photo

“The study a posteriori of the distribution of consciousness shows it to be exactly such as we might expect in an organ added for the sake of steering a nervous system grown too complex to regulate itself.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

Source: 1890s, The Principles of Psychology (1890), Ch. 5

William Penn photo

“It were Happy if we studied Nature more in natural Things; and acted according to Nature; whose rules are few, plain and most reasonable.”

William Penn (1644–1718) English real estate entrepreneur, philosopher, early Quaker and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania

9
Fruits of Solitude (1682), Part I

“It seems to me (said she) that you are in some brown study.”

Source: Euphues (Arber [1580]), P. 80. Compare: "A brown study", Jonathan Swift, Polite Conversation.

Walt Whitman photo
Dinesh D'Souza photo
Philip K. Dick photo

“Writing is a lonely way of life. You shut yourself up in your study and work and work.”

Philip K. Dick (1928–1982) American author

Introduction to The Golden Man (1980)

“Subdivision of labour requires that international agents should devote themselves first to languages,—their means of operation,—and next to the study of man, as an individual and in communities.”

Thomas Taylor Meadows (1815–1868) British sinologist and diplomatic interpreter from Chinese

T. T. Meadows quoted in The Chinese Speaker (1916), p. 1 by Evan Morgan

“As indicated by its title "A History of Great Ideas in Abnormal Psychology", this book is not just concerned with the chronology of events or with biographical details of great psychiatrists and psychopathologists. It has as its main interest, a study of the ideas underlying theories about mental illness and mental health in the Western world. These are studied according to their historical development from ancient times to the twentieth century.
The book discusses the history of ideas about the nature of mental illness, its causation, its treatment and also social attitudes towards mental illness. The conceptions of mental illness are discussed in the context of philosophical ideas about the human mind and the medical theories prevailing in different periods of history. Certain perennial controversies are presented such as those between the psychological and organic approaches to the treatment of mental illness, and those between the focus on disease entities (nosology) versus the focus on individual personalities. The beliefs of primitive societies are discussed, and the development of early scientific ideas about mental illness in Greek and Roman times. The study continues through the medieval age to the Renaissance. More emphasis is then placed on the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, the enlightenment of the eighteenth, and the emergence of modern psychological and psychiatric ideas concerning psychopathology in the twentieth century.”

Thaddus E. Weckowicz (1919–2000) Canadian psychologist

Introduction text.
A History of Great Ideas in Abnormal Psychology, (1990)

Ernest King photo
Stanley Baldwin photo
Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Sr. photo

“It… has long been realized by those engaged in the work of installing scientific management, that transference of skill is one of the most important features(*)… The importance of transference of skill was realized many years ago. Studies in division of work and in elapsed time of doing work were made by Adam Smith, Charles Babbage, M. Coulomb and others, but accurate measurement in management became possible when Mr. Taylor devised his method of observing and recording elementary unit net times for performance with measured allowance for fatigue.
It is now possible to capture, record and transfer not only skill and experience of the best worker, but also the most desirable elements in the methods of all workers. To do this, scientific management carefully proceeds to isolate, analyze, measure, synthesize and standardize least wasteful elementary units of methods. This it does by motion study, time study and micro-motion study which are valuable aids to sort and retain all useful elements of best methods and to evolve from these a method worthy to be established as a standard and to be transferred and taught. Through this process is made possible the community conservation of measured details of experience which has revolutionized every industry that has availed itself of it.”

Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Sr. (1868–1924) American industrial engineer

Source: The present state of art of industrial management, 1913, p. 1124-5 ; (*) See Primer of Scientific Management, F. B. Gilbreth, p. 56; Psychology of Management, L. M. Gilbreth, chap. 8; Motion Study, F. B. Gilbreth, p. 36.

Theodore Dalrymple photo
Misty Lee photo
Gideon Mantell photo
Jean Dubuffet photo
Thomas Young (scientist) photo
Richard Rodríguez photo
Chick Corea photo
Richard Maurice Bucke photo
Maria Mitchell photo

“Study as if you were going to live forever; live as if you were going to die tomorrow.”

Maria Mitchell (1818–1889) American astronomer

The Book of Positive Quotations By John Cook, Leslie Ann Gibson (2nd ed. 2007), p. 283.
Attributed

“Microsoft must be testing the outer limits of what a customer will put up with before bolting to Linux, certainly a valuable scientific study from my point of view.”

Pamela Jones Computer law scholar

A Brave New Modular World - Another MS Patent Application http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2007012808444146, retrieved 1 September 2010.

Mani Madhava Chakyar photo
Edward St. Aubyn photo
Jacques Derrida photo

“In order to try to remove what we are going to say from what risks happening, if we judge by the many signs, to Marx's work today, which is to say also to his injunction. What risks happening is that one will try to play Marx off against Marxism so as to neutralize, or at any rate muffle the political imperative in the untroubled exegesis of a classified work. One can sense a coming fashion or stylishness in this regard in the culture and more precisely in the university. And what is there to worry about here? Why fear what may also become a cushioning operation? This recent stereotype would be destined, whether one wishes it or not, to depoliticize profoundly the Marxist reference, to do its best, by putting on a tolerant face, to neutralize a potential force, first of all by enervating a corpus, by silencing in it the revolt [the return is acceptable provided that the revolt, which initially inspired uprising, indignation, insurrection, revolutionary momentum, does not come back]. People would be ready to accept the return of Marx or the return to Marx, on the condition that a silence is maintained about Marx's injunction not just to decipher but to act and to make the deciphering [the interpretation] into a transformation that "changes the world. In the name of an old concept of reading, such an ongoing neutralization would attempt to conjure away a danger: now that Marx is dead, and especially now that Marxism seems to be in rapid decomposition, some people seem to say, we are going to be able to concern ourselves with Marx without being bothered-by the Marxists and, why not, by Marx himself, that is, by a ghost that goes on speaking. We'll treat him calmly, objectively, without bias: according to the academic rules, in the University, in the library, in colloquia! We'll do it systematically, by respecting the norms of hermeneutical, philological, philosophical exegesis. If one listens closely, one already hears whispered: "Marx, you see, was despite everything a philosopher like any other; what is more [and one can say this now that so many Marxists have fallen silent], he was a great-philosopher who deserves to figure on the list of those works we assign for study and from which he has been banned for too long.29 He doesn't belong to the communists, to the Marxists, to the parties-, he ought to figure within our great canon of Western political philosophy. Return to Marx, let's finally read him as a great philosopher."”

We have heard this and we will hear it again.
Injunctions of Marx
Specters of Marx (1993)

Yvette Rosser photo

“# "An operationally definable, objective, non-anthropomorphic study of purposiveness, goal-seeking system behavior, symbolic cognitive processes, consciousness and self-awareness, and sociocultural emergence and dynamics in general.”

Walter F. Buckley (1922–2006) American sociologist

Source: Sociology and modern systems theory (1967), p. 39 as cited in: Joyce Aschenbrenner, Lloyd R. Collins (1978) The Processes of Urbanism: A Multidisciplinary Approach http://books.google.nl/books?id=qC4hN9zpgI0C&pg=PA383. p. 383.

Warren Farrell photo
Newt Gingrich photo

“I'm not studying this, I'm not looking at it in great detail, but the last guy to announce on your show came in fourth.”

Newt Gingrich (1943) Professor, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives

Response to Jon Stewart's request that he announce his candidacy for President of the United States in the 2008 election on The Daily Show (6 June 2005)
2000s

Stanislav Grof photo
Paul A. Samuelson photo
Mao Zedong photo
Henri Poincaré photo
Shona Brown photo
Gerard Bilders photo
Wanda Orlikowski photo
John Muir photo
John Wallis photo
Robert P. George photo
Warren Farrell photo
Mircea Eliade photo
Jerry Coyne photo
Allen West (politician) photo

“The first thing you’ve got to do is study and understand what we’re up against. You must realize that this is not a religion that you’re fighting against. You’re fighting against a theo-political belief system and construct. You’re fighting against something that’s been doing this thing since 622 AD - 7th century - 1,388 years. You want to dig up Charles Martel and ask him why he was fighting the Muslim army at the Battle of Tours in 732? You want to ask the Venetian fleet at LePonto why they were fighting a Muslim fleet in 1571? You want to ask the Christian – I mean the Germanic and Austrian – knights why they were fighting at the gates of Vienna in 1683? You want to ask people what happened at Constantinople and why today it’s called Istanbul? Because they lost that fight in 1453. You need to get into the Qur'an, you need to understand their precepts, you need to read the Sunnah, you need to read the Hadith and then you can really understand this is not a perversion: They are doing exactly what this book says. I want to close by saying this, and I think we’ve said this all through this morning so far: Until we get principled leadership in the United States that is willing to say that, we will continue to chase our tail, because we will never clearly define who this enemy is and then understand their goals and objectives - which is on any jihadist website - and then come up with the right and proper goals and objectives to not only secure our republic, but to secure western civilization.”

Allen West (politician) (1961) American politician; retired United States Army officer

Response to question: Why would [Islamist terrorists] warp a religion to justify attacking the United States. [Hudson Institute, Reclaim American Liberty Conference, January 13, 2010, http://www.hudson.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=hudson_upcoming_events&id=741, March 22, 2011]
2010s

John Constable photo

“And however one's mind may be elevated, and kept us to what is excellent, by the works of the Great Masters — still Nature is the fountain's head, the source from whence all originally must spring — and should an artist continue his practice without referring to nature he must soon form a manner, & be reduced to the same deplorable situation as the French painter mentioned by Sir J. Reynolds, who told him that he had long ceased to look at nature for she only put him out.For the last two years I have been running after pictures, and seeking the truth at second hand. I have not endeavoured to represent nature with the same elevation of mind — but have neither endeavoured to make my performances look as if really executed by other men….. There is room enough for a natural painter. The great vice of the present day is bravura, an attempt to do something beyond the truth.I am come to a determination to make no idle visits this summer, nor to give up my time to common-place people. I shall return to Bergholt, where I shall make some laborious studies from nature — and I shall endeavour to get a pure and unaffected manner of representing the scenes that may employ me.”

John Constable (1776–1837) English Romantic painter

3 quotes in Constable's letter to John Dunthorne (29 May 1802), from John Constable's Correspondence, ed. R.B. Beckett (Ipswich, Suffolk Records Society, 1962-1970), part 2, pp. 31-32
1800s - 1810s

John Gray photo
John Rupert Firth photo

“The complete meaning of a word is always contextual, and no study of meaning apart from context can be taken seriously.”

John Rupert Firth (1890–1960) English linguist

Source: "The Technique of Semantics." 1935, p. 37

Thomas Browne photo
Miley Cyrus photo

“That's what I want to do with my life. I would love to be a photographer, I want to come to London to study. I hear there are some great schools here so I would love to do that.”

Miley Cyrus (1992) American actor and singer-songwriter

TV Guide http://www.tvguide.com/News/Miley-Cyrus-Leibovitz-1000409.aspx (December 2, 2008)

Jane Roberts photo
Elias Canetti photo

“It amazes me how a person to whom literature means anything can take it up as an object of study.”

Elias Canetti (1905–1994) Bulgarian-born Swiss and British jewish modernist novelist, playwright, memoirist, and non-fiction writer

J. Agee, trans. (1989), p. 73
Das Geheimherz der Uhr [The Secret Heart of the Clock] (1987)

Bart D. Ehrman photo
Richard Rodríguez photo
Jeff Hawkins photo

“I do two things: I design mobile computers and I study brains.”

Jeff Hawkins (1957) American entrepreneur and neuroscientist; founder of Palm Computing

Jeff Hawkins at TED2003: "How brain science will change computing" https://www.ted.com/talks/jeff_hawkins_on_how_brain_science_will_change_computing/transcript?utm_content=ted-androidapp&awesm=on.ted.com_d0o6F&utm_medium=on.ted.com-android-share&utm_source=direct-on.ted.com&utm_campaign= (February 2003)

Matt Ridley photo
James Mace photo

“Just as one cannot study the Holocaust without becoming half Jewish in spirit, one cannot study the Famine and not become at least half Ukrainian.”

James Mace (1952–2004) American historian of the Ukraine

"Legacy of the Famine: Ukraine as a postgenocidal society" in The Day (February 18, 2003) http://www.day.kiev.ua/en/article/close/legacy-famine-ukraine-postgenocidal-society

John F. Kennedy photo
George F. Kennan photo
Aldo Capitini photo
Anthony Burgess photo
Marvin Minsky photo
Josemaría Escrivá photo

“It is easier to bustle about than to study, but it is also less effective.”

Josemaría Escrivá (1902–1975) Spanish theologian

#524
The Furrow (1986)

Tanith Lee photo
Colin Wilson photo
Herbert A. Simon photo
Noam Chomsky photo
Hyman George Rickover photo
George Washington Plunkitt photo

“I rope them all in by givin’ them opportunities to show themselves off. I don’t trouble them with political arguments. I just study human nature and act accordin’. p. 26”

George Washington Plunkitt (1842–1924) New York State Senator

Plunkitt of Tammany Hall, Chapter 6, To Hold Your District: Study Human Nature and Act Accordin’

Henry Adams photo

“The Church had known more about women than science will ever know, and the historian who studied the sources of Christianity felt sometimes convinced that the Church had been made by the woman chiefly as her protest against man.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

In the first part of this quote, Adams alludes to the figure of the Virgin, the subject of Chapters V–XIII of Mont Saint Michel and Chartres.
The Education of Henry Adams (1907)

Edsger W. Dijkstra photo
Kent Hovind photo
Logan Pearsall Smith photo

“Perhaps not only in his attitude towards truth, but in his attitude towards himself, Montaigne was a precursor. Perhaps here again he was ahead of his own time, ahead of our time also, since none of us would have the courage to imitate him. It may be that some future century will vindicate this unseemly performance; in the meanwhile it will be of interest to examine the reasons which he gives us for it. He says, in the first place, that he found this study of himself, this registering of his moods and imaginations, extremely amusing; it was an exploration of an unknown region, full of the queerest chimeras and monsters, a new art of discovery, in which he had become by practice “the cunningest man alive.” It was profitable also, for most people enjoy their pleasures without knowing it; they glide over them, and fix and feed their minds on the miseries of life. But to observe and record one’s pleasant experiences and imaginations, to associate one’s mind with them, not to let them dully and unfeelingly escape us, was to make them not only more delightful but more lasting. As life grows shorter we should endeavour, he says, to make it deeper and more full. But he found moral profit also in this self-study; for how, he asked, can we correct our vices if we do not know them, how cure the diseases of our soul if we never observe their symptoms? The man who has not learned to know himself is not the master, but the slave of life: he is the “explorer without knowledge, the magistrate without jurisdiction, and when all is done, the fool of the play.””

Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946) British American-born writer

“Montaigne,” p. 6
Reperusals and Recollections (1936)

Charles Sanders Peirce photo
Antoine Augustin Cournot photo
Frank McCourt photo
Louis Brandeis photo
Jonah Lehrer photo
Qian Xuesen photo
Nur Muhammad Taraki photo
Hans Reichenbach photo
Preston Manning photo
Donald Tovey photo
Niels Henrik Abel photo

“It is readily seen that any theory written by Laplace will be superior to all produced of lower standing. It appears to me that if one wants to make progress in mathematics, one should study the masters and not the pupils.”

Niels Henrik Abel (1802–1829) Norwegian mathematician

Marginal note in his mathematical notebook (ca. 1826) as quoted by Øystein Ore, Niels Henrik Abel: Mathematician Extraordinary (1957)

Lillian Gilbreth photo
Simon Kuznets photo

“we need far more empirical study than we have had so far of the universe of inventors; any finding concerning inventors… would be of great value… for public policy in regard to inventive activity.”

Simon Kuznets (1901–1985) economist

Simon Kuznets (1962, p. 32), as cited in: David W. Galenson, "Understanding the Creativity of Scientists and Entrepreneurs." (2012).

“Almost every study of the secret of the successful leader has agreed that the possession of a generous and unusual endowment of physical and nervous energy is essential to personal ascendancy. Those who rise in any marked way above the mass of men have conspicuously more drive, more sheer endurance, greater vigor of body and mind than the average person”

Ordway Tead (1891–1973) American academic

Source: The art of leadership (1935), p. 83; As cited in: Preston J. Beil (1956) Variety store retailing: A text and basic reference book for the multi-billion dollar variety store and popular-priced general merchandise market. p. 90.

Samuel Adams photo