Henri-Frédéric Amiel quote: “At bottom there is but one subject of study: the forms and metamorphoses of mind. All other subjects may be reduced to …”

“Literature is not a subject of study, but an object of study.”

Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist

"Quotes", Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (1957), Polemical Introduction

“Science is the study of those things that can be reduced to the study of other things.”

Gerald M. Weinberg (1933–2018) American computer scientist

Source: Introduction to General Systems Thinking, 1975, p. 30; Quote in: Dieter Spath, Walter Ganz (2008) The Future of Services: Trends and Perspectives. p. 226

“1. The human mind is so constructed that it must see every perception in a time-relation—in an order—and every perception of an object in a space-relation—as outside or beside our perceiving selves.
2. These necessary time-relations are reducible to Number, and they are studied in the theory of number, arithmetic and algebra.
3. These necessary space-relations are reducible to Position and Form, and they are studied in geometry.
Mathematics, therefore, studies an aspect of all knowing, and reveals to us the universe as it presents itself, in one form, to mind. To apprehend this and to be conversant with the higher developments of mathematical reasoning, are to have at hand the means of vitalizing all teaching of elementary mathematics.”

Nicholas Murray Butler (1862–1947) American philosopher, diplomat, and educator

Editor's Introduction, The Teaching of Elementary Mathematics https://books.google.com/books?id=NKoAAAAAMAAJ (1906) by David Eugene Smith

“1. The human mind is so constructed that it must see every perception in a time-relation—in an order—and every perception of an object in a space-relation—as outside or beside our perceiving selves.
2. These necessary time-relations are reducible to Number, and they are studied in the theory of number, arithmetic and algebra.
3. These necessary space-relations are reducible to Position and Form, and they are studied in geometry.
Mathematics, therefore, studies an aspect of all knowing, and reveals to us the universe as it presents itself, in one form, to mind. To apprehend this and to be conversant with the higher developments of mathematical reasoning, are to have at hand the means of vitalizing all teaching of elementary mathematics.”

David Eugene Smith (1860–1944) American mathematician

David Eugene Smith, "Editor's Introduction," in: The Teaching of Elementary Mathematics https://books.google.com/books?id=NKoAAAAAMAAJ (1906)

“The science of government it is my duty to study, more than all other sciences; the arts of legislation and administration and negotiation ought to take the place of, indeed exclude, in a manner, all other arts. I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

Letter to Abigail Adams (12 May 1780)
1780s
Context: The science of government it is my duty to study, more than all other sciences; the arts of legislation and administration and negotiation ought to take the place of, indeed exclude, in a manner, all other arts. I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain.

“If Universities do not study useless subjects, who will?”

George Francis FitzGerald (1851–1901) Irish physicist

[The Value of Useless Studies, Nature, 25 February 1892, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=pst.000047662452;view=1up;seq=433] (p. 392)

“The best educators are the ones that inspire their students. That inspiration comes from a passion that teachers have for the subject they're teaching. Most commonly, that person spent their lives studying that subject, and they bring an infectious enthusiasm to the audience.”

Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958) American astrophysicist and science communicator

Global Ideas from Pluto's Challenger (May 21, 2009)
Context: The best educators are the ones that inspire their students. That inspiration comes from a passion that teachers have for the subject they're teaching. Most commonly, that person spent their lives studying that subject, and they bring an infectious enthusiasm to the audience.I think many people have that enthusiasm, but they are prevented from being teachers because they didn't go through the teacher mill. Now you have teachers who have been through the teacher mill, yet they have no capacity to inspire anyone at all. It's the inspired student that continues to learn on their own. That's what separates the real achievers in the world from those who pedal along, finishing assignments.

“Economic theory is the most prestigious subject of instruction and study. Agricultural economics, labor economics and marketing are lower caste fields of study.”

John Kenneth Galbraith book The New Industrial State

Source: The New Industrial State (1967), Chapter X, Section 5, p. 122 (Mr. Galbraith was originally an agricultural economist...)

“The study of money, above all other fields in economics, is the one in which complexity is used to disguise truth or to evade truth, not to reveal it.”

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) American economist and diplomat

Source: Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went (1975), Chapter I, Money, p. 5

“The subjective element in geological studies accounts for two characteristic types that can be distinguished among geologists. One considering geology as a creative art, the other regarding geology as an exact science.”

Reinout Willem van Bemmelen (1904–1983) Dutch geologist

Source: "The Scientific Character of Geology," 1961, p. 453; quoted in: Robert Woodtli (1964), Methods of Prospection for Chromite, p. 80

“At bottom there is but one subject of study: the forms and metamorphoses of mind. All other subjects may be reduced to that; all other studies bring us back to this study.”

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