No. 13
1790s, Discourses on Davila (1790)
Context: Are riches, honors, and beauty going out of fashion? Is not the rage for them, on the contrary, increased faster than improvement in knowledge? As long as either of these are in vogue, will there not be emulations and rivalries? Does not the increase of knowledge in any man increase his emulation; and the diffusion of knowledge among men multiply rivalries? Has the progress of science, arts, and letters yet discovered that there are no passions in human nature? no ambition, avarice, or desire of fame? Are these passions cooled, diminished, or extinguished? Is the rage for admiration less ardent in men or women? Have these propensities less a tendency to divisions, controversies, seditions, mutinies, and civil wars than formerly? On the contrary, the more knowledge is diffused, the more the passions are extended, and the more furious they grow.
“Knowledge has to be improved, challenged, and increased constantly, or it vanishes.”
“The desire of knowledge, like the thirst of riches, increases ever with the acquisition of it.”
Book II (1760), Ch. 3.
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1760-1767)
“Hasten slowly. Run faster than beauty.”
Diary of an Unknown (1988)
“A man is saved no faster than he gets knowledge.”
History of the Church, 4:588 (10 April 1842)
1840s
Source: The Social Construction of Reality, 1966, p.77-87
“Are you running out of breath? Go faster!”
Life credo
St. 13
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=elcc (written 1750, publ. 1751)
Isaac Asimov's Book of Science and Nature Quotations (1988), edited with Jason A. Shulman, p. 281
General sources
Wholf, Tracy (May 18, 2014). "'Wikipedian' editor took on website’s gender gap" http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/wikipedian-editor-took-wikipedias-gender-gap/. PBS NewsHour (PBS). Retrieved May 19, 2014.
