Quotes about scholar (495 quotes, page 5)

“The German Rendering. The German language was divided into as many dialects as tribes and states, and none served as a bond of literary union. Saxons and Bavarians, Hanoverians and Swabians, could scarcely understand each other. Each author wrote in the dialect of his district, Zwingli in his Schwyzerdütsch. "I have so far read no book or letter," says Luther in the preface to his version of the Pentateuch (1523), in which the German language is properly handled. Nobody seems to care sufficiently for it; and every preacher thinks he has a right to change it at pleasure, and to invent new terms." Scholars preferred to write in Latin, and when they attempted to use the mother tongue, as Reuchlin and Melanchthon did occasionally, they fell far below in ease and beauty of expression.
Luther brought harmony out of this confusion, and made the modern High German the common book language. He chose as the basis the Saxon dialect, which was used at the Saxon court and in diplomatic intercourse between the emperor and the estates, but was bureaucratic, stiff, heavy, involved, dragging, and unwieldy. He popularized and adapted it to theology and religion. He enriched it with the vocabulary of the German mystics, chroniclers, and poets. He gave it wings, and made it intelligible to the common people of all parts of Germany.”

Philip Schaff (1819–1893) American Calvinist theologian

Which Greek and Hebrew texts of the Bible did Luther use?

People , Pleasure , Books , Religion

“Professor Halbfass follows a scholar's methodology in determining the extent of Indo-Greek contact. He is determined to find a document, some written mention, some journey relating to this contact before he would admit it, but by their very nature such evidences can only be very rare considering the time that has lapsed and the changes that have been wrought. But if Professor Halbfass had followed a more inward method or criterion of looking at Greek literature, he would have easily found plentiful evidence of a living Indo-Greek contact, particularly at the deeper level of the spirit. Both shared a common spiritual approach; both intuited man and his world in the same way; both expressed their spiritual intuition in the language of Gods; both taught âtma-vâda, and the theory of Two Selves and Two Ways; both taught the theory of karma, rebirth and moksha. In fact, the Greece of Pythagoras, Plato and Plotinus has more in common with Hindu India than with Christian Europe.”

Ram Swarup (1920–1998) Indian historian

On Hinduism (2000)

God , World , Way , Literature

“It is… the author's confident hope that this book will give a fresh interest to the story of Greek mathematics in the eyes both of mathematicians and of classical scholars.”

Thomas Little Heath (1861–1940) British civil servant and academic

Preface p. v
A History of Greek Mathematics (1921) Vol. 1. From Thales to Euclid

Books , Hope , Confidence , Mathematics

“Almost all the noblest things that have been achieved in the world, have been achieved by poor men; poor scholars, poor professional men, poor artisans and artists, poor philosophers, poets, and men of genius.”

Albert Pike book Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry

Source: Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871), Ch. XXII : Knight of the Royal Axe, or Prince of Libanus, p. 347

Men , World

“Some see our struggle as a symbol of the trend toward suicide among Blacks. Scholars and academics, in particular, have been quick to make this accusation. They fail to perceive differences. Jumping off a bridge is not the same as moving to wipe out the overwhelming force of an oppressive army. When scholars call our actions suicidal, they should be logically consistent and describe all historical revolutionary movements in the same way. Thus the American colonialists, the French of the late eighteenth century, the Russians of 1917, the Jews of Warsaw, the Cubans, the NLF, the North Vietnamese—any people who struggle against a brutal and powerful force—are suicidal.”

Huey P. Newton book Revolutionary Suicide

Source: Revolutionary Suicide (1973), p. 5

People , Way , Suicide

“The debate as to where "magic" ends and "religion" begins is an old one, and it appeared to have been settled some decades ago when scholars concluded that no discernible boundary was to be found.”

Peter Farb (1929–1980) American academic and writer

Man's Rise to Civilization (1968)
Context: The debate as to where "magic" ends and "religion" begins is an old one, and it appeared to have been settled some decades ago when scholars concluded that no discernible boundary was to be found. As a result, the two were often lumped together in the adjective "magico-religious"...

Religion , Appearance

“Miracles are very often thought of, both by those who believe in them and by those who do not, as events, or purported events, that contradict the laws of nature and that therefore cannot be explained by science or reason. But this is not at all what the Bible means by a miracle, as any Biblical scholar will tell you.”

Albert Nolan (1934) South African priest and activist

Source: Jesus Before Christianity: The Gospel of Liberation (1976), p. 33.
Context: Miracles are very often thought of, both by those who believe in them and by those who do not, as events, or purported events, that contradict the laws of nature and that therefore cannot be explained by science or reason. But this is not at all what the Bible means by a miracle, as any Biblical scholar will tell you. “The laws of nature” is a modern scientific concept. The Bible knows nothing about nature, let alone the laws of nature.

Law , Nature , Science

“The Fourth Gospel is admitted by all Greek scholars to be, in parts, extraordinarily obscure.”

Edwin Abbott Abbott (1838–1926) British theologian and author

Johannine Grammar (1906), p. 5
Context: The Fourth Gospel is admitted by all Greek scholars to be, in parts, extraordinarily obscure. No honest writer of history is obscure, as a rule, except through carelessness or ignorance — ignorance, it may be, of the art of writing, or of the subject he is writing about, or of the persons he is addressing, or of the words he is using, but, in any case, ignorance of something. But an honest writer of poetry or prophecy may be consciously obscure because a message, so to speak, has come into his mind in a certain form, and he feels this likely to prove the best form — ultimately, when his readers have thought about it.

Parting

“An artist by temperament, he was a scholar in the truest sense, interested and well versed in all branches of human learning, not in the manner of present-day specialists who confine themselves in the limited branches of their chosen fields. He was also recognized as the most authoritative historian and interpreter of fruitful and transcendental events in our epoch, a researcher of the first order, a collector of rare and antique objects that are landmarks of Philippine culture.”

Epifanio de los Santos (1871–1928) Filipino politician

BALIW
Context: He was undoubtedly the best critic, writer and biographer that the golden age of literature in our country have ever produced. An artist by temperament, he was a scholar in the truest sense, interested and well versed in all branches of human learning, not in the manner of present-day specialists who confine themselves in the limited branches of their chosen fields. He was also recognized as the most authoritative historian and interpreter of fruitful and transcendental events in our epoch, a researcher of the first order, a collector of rare and antique objects that are landmarks of Philippine culture. None could equal him in rigidness and perseverance and study of our past, even in search of our wealth of relevant and important data that enrich the sources for the study of national history and literature. He was also recognized as the foremost Filipino scholar of his time. -Rafael Palma

Sense , Learning

“Our preceptors were gentlemen as well as scholars. There was not a grain of sentimentalism in the institution; on the other hand, the place was permeated by a profound sense of justice.”

Albert Jay Nock (1870–1945) American journalist

Source: Memoirs of a Superfluous Man (1943), p. 34
Context: Our preceptors were gentlemen as well as scholars. There was not a grain of sentimentalism in the institution; on the other hand, the place was permeated by a profound sense of justice. … An equalitarian and democratic regime must by consequence assume, tacitly or avowedly, that everybody is educable. The theory of our regime was directly contrary to this. Our preceptors did not see that doctrines of equality and democracy had any footing in the premises. They did not pretend to believe that everyone is educable, for they knew, on the contrary, that very few are educable, very few indeed. They saw this as a fact of nature, like the fact that few are six feet tall. … They accepted the fact that there are practicable ranges of intellectual and spiritual experience which nature has opened to some and closed to others.

Justice , Sense

“For centuries scholars have been forced to grapple with the problem of accounting for the parallels between Greek literature and the Bible.”

Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) American linguist

Did Greece borrow from Israel? Or did Israel borrow from Greece? Can the parallels be accidental, do they obliterate the uniqueness of both Israel and Greece?
Introduction
The Common Background of Greek and Hebrew Civilizations (1965 [1962])

Literature , Problem

“But the academic is brought closer to lower-class culture because of his very distance from it. Leisured, and skilled at abstracting from immediate experience, the scholar is able to see how aspects of individual experience constitute a culture. By contrast, the poor have neither the inclination nor the skill to imagine their lives so abstractly.”

Richard Rodríguez (1944) American journalist and essayist

Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez (1982)
Context: Courses were offered in such fields as nineteenth-century black history and Hispanic-American folk art. The activists made a peculiar claim for these classes. They insisted that the courses would alleviate the cultural anxiety of nonwhite students by permitting them to stay in touch with their home culture. The perspective gained in the classroom or the library does indeed permit an academic to draw nearer to and understand better the culture of the alien poor. But the academic is brought closer to lower-class culture because of his very distance from it. Leisured, and skilled at abstracting from immediate experience, the scholar is able to see how aspects of individual experience constitute a culture. By contrast, the poor have neither the inclination nor the skill to imagine their lives so abstractly.

Imagination

“The leaders and scholars of Jesus’ time had first enslaved themselves to the law.”

Albert Nolan (1934) South African priest and activist

Source: Jesus Before Christianity: The Gospel of Liberation (1976), p. 71.
Context: The leaders and scholars of Jesus’ time had first enslaved themselves to the law. This not only enhanced their prestige in society, it also gave them a sense of security. Man fears the responsibility of being free. It is often easier to let others make the decisions or to rely upon the letter of the law. Some men want to be slaves. After enslaving themselves to the letter of the law, such men always go on to deny freedom to others. They will not rest until they have imposed the same oppressive burdens upon everyone (Matt 23:4,15).

Law , Time

“For this reason, great theological scholars gave instruction in all such matters only by means of metaphors and allegories.”

Maimónides book The Guide for the Perplexed

Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Introduction
Context: You must know that if a person, who has attained a certain degree of perfection, wishes to impart to others, either orally or in writing, any portion of the knowledge which he has acquired of these subjects, he is utterly unable to be as systematic and explicit as he could be in a science of which the method is well known. The same difficulties which he encountered when investigating the subject for himself will attend him when endeavouring to instruct others: viz., at one time the explanation will appear lucid, at another time, obscure: this property of the subject appears to remain the same both to the advanced scholar and to the beginner. For this reason, great theological scholars gave instruction in all such matters only by means of metaphors and allegories.

“I grew up believing that the novel has nothing to do with pure literature. So I was taught by scholars.”

Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American writer

The Chinese Novel (1938)
Context: I grew up believing that the novel has nothing to do with pure literature. So I was taught by scholars. The art of literature, so I was taught, is something devised by men of learning. Out of the brains of scholars came rules to control the rush of genius, that wild fountain which has its source in deepest life. Genius, great or less, is the spring, and art is the sculptured shape, classical or modern, into which the waters must be forced, if scholars and critics were to be served. But the people of China did not so serve. The waters of the genius of story gushed out as they would, however the natural rocks allowed and the trees persuaded, and only common people came and drank and found rest and pleasure. For the novel in China was the peculiar product of the common people. And it was solely their property.

Literature

“Scholars, who pride themselves on speaking their minds, often engage in a form of self-censorship which is called "realism." To be "realistic" in dealing with a problem is to work only among the alternatives which the most powerful in society put forth.”

Howard Zinn (1922–2010) author and historian

Howard Zinn on War (2000), Ch. 14: Vietnam: A Matter of Perspective http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Zinn/Vietnam_Perspective_HZOW.html
Context: Scholars, who pride themselves on speaking their minds, often engage in a form of self-censorship which is called "realism." To be "realistic" in dealing with a problem is to work only among the alternatives which the most powerful in society put forth. It is as if we are all confined to a, b, c, or d in the multiple choice test, when we know there is another possible answer. American society, although it has more freedom of expression than most societies in the world, thus sets limits beyond which respectable people are not supposed to think or speak. So far, too much of the debate on Vietnam has observed these limits.

Problem

“Still the child betrays the passions of the man, and there are hymns, though few in number, in the Veda, so full of thought and speculation that at this early period no poet in any other nation could have conceived them. I give but one specimen, the 129th hymn of the tenth book of the Rig-veda. It is a hymn which long ago attracted the attention of that eminent scholar H. T. Colebrooke, and of which, by the kind assistance of a friend, I am enabled to offer a metrical translation. In judging it we should hear in mind that it was not written by a gnostic or by a pantheistic philosopher, but by a poet who felt all these doubts and problems as his own, without any wish to convince or to startle, only uttering what had been weighing on his mind, just as later poets would sing the doubts and sorrows of their heart.
:Nor Aught nor Naught existed; yon bright sky
Was not, nor heaven's broad woof outstretched above.
What covered all? what sheltered? what concealed?
Was it the water's fathomles abyss?
There was not death — yet was there naught immortal,
There was no confine betwixt day and night;
The only One breathed breathless by itself,
Other than It there nothing since has been.
Darkness there was, and all at first was veiled
In gloom profound — an ocean without light —
The germ that still lay covered in the husk
Burst forth, one nature, from the fervent heat.
Then first came love upon it, the new spring
Of mind — yea, poets in their hearts discerned,
Pondering, this bond between created things
And uncreated. Comes this spark from earth
Piercing and all-pervading, or from heaven?
Then seeds were sown, and mighty powers arose —
Nature below, and power and will above —
Who knows the secret? who proclaimed it here,
Whence, whence this manifold creation sprang?
The gods themselves came later into being —
Who knows from whence this great creation sprang?
He from whom all this great creation came,
Whether his will created or was mute,
The Most High Seer that is in highest heaven,
He knows it — or perchance even He knows not.
:* "The Vedas"”

Max Müller (1823–1900) German-born philologist and orientalist

Chips from a German Workshop (1866)

Love , Death , God , Secret

“The best definition of true imagination is that it is the sum of our faculties. Poetry is the scholar's art.”

Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American poet

The Necessary Angel (1951), Imagination as Value
Context: The best definition of true imagination is that it is the sum of our faculties. Poetry is the scholar's art. The acute intelligence of the imagination, the illimitable resources of its memory, its power to possess the moment it perceives — if we were speaking of light itself, and thinking of the relationship between objects and light, no further demonstration would be necessary... What light requires a day to do, and by day I mean a kind of Biblical revolution of time, the imagination does in the twinkling of an eye. It colors, increases, brings to a beginning and end, invents languages, crushes men, and, for that matter, gods in its hands, it says to women more than it is possible to say, it rescues all of us from what we have called absolute fact...

Art , Imagination

“In Kent's translation of the New Testament, these words read: "I did not come to bring peace, but a struggle. For I came to make a man disagree with his father, a daughter with her mother, and a daughter-in-law with her mother-in-law. It is to be doubted if a single reputable Biblical scholar can be found who will interpret these words to mean that Jesus had reference to a literal sword as a means of accomplishing a desired end. With reference to the passage in Luke,”

Kirby Page (1890–1957) American clergyman

Source: The Sword or the Cross, Which Should be the Weapon of the Christian Militant? (1921), Ch.4 p. 63-64
Context: We find the verses, "I came not to send peace, but a sword" (Matt. 10:34), and "Let him sell his cloak and buy a sword" (Luke 22:36), which are used as proof that Jesus wanted his disciples to be prepared for war.... in Matthew, we find that the very next verse reads: "For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.... If one means that Jesus came to bring a literal sword then the next means that he came as a great home-wrecker, setting the members thereof one against the other. Such a literal interpretation prevents any clear understanding of the words of Jesus. Surely his words, "I came not to send peace but a sword," mean that he came to bring about a sharp division between those who do right and those who do wrong. In Kent's translation of the New Testament, these words read: "I did not come to bring peace, but a struggle. For I came to make a man disagree with his father, a daughter with her mother, and a daughter-in-law with her mother-in-law. It is to be doubted if a single reputable Biblical scholar can be found who will interpret these words to mean that Jesus had reference to a literal sword as a means of accomplishing a desired end. With reference to the passage in Luke, one has only to read the verses that follow to see that Jesus could not have meant these words as a sanction of war. It was the last evening of Jesus life... He himself was about to be reckoned with transgressors and surely his disciples would have to encounter bitter opposition. They must therefore be prepared must be armed must have swords.... the disciples, promptly misunderstanding Jesus' reference to a sword, reminded him that they had two, and he replied, "It is enough" or according to Moffatt's translation, "Enough! Enough!"). But obviously, two swords were not enough to defend his life from his strong and determined foes; two swords were not enough for war. They were, however, enough and even one was enough, to convey his thought of being prepared for the time of stress that was approaching. Professor Hastings Rashdall, the eminent theologian and philosopher, says in this connection: "More probably the words were 'a piece of ironical foreboding,' which the disciples took literally. The 'it is enough' will then mean, 'Drop that idea: my words were not meant seriously."

Peace , Law , Reading , Daughters

“Scholars and artists thrown together are often annoyed at the puzzle of where they differ.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

The Figure a Poem Makes (1939)
Context: Scholars and artists thrown together are often annoyed at the puzzle of where they differ. Both work from knowledge; but I suspect they differ most importantly in the way their knowledge is come by. Scholars get theirs with conscientious thoroughness along projected lines of logic; poets theirs cavalierly and as it happens in and out of books. They stick to nothing deliberately, but let what will stick to them like burrs where they walk in the fields.

“She was no scholar in geometry or aught else, but she felt intuitively that the bend and slant of the way she went were somehow outside any other angles or bends she had ever known.”

C. L. Moore (1911–1987) American author

Black God's Kiss (1934)
Context: It was a long way down. Before she had gone very far the curious dizziness she had known before came over her again, a dizziness not entirely induced by the spirals she whirled around, but a deeper, atomic unsteadiness as if not only she but also the substances around her were shifting. There was something queer about the angles of those curves. She was no scholar in geometry or aught else, but she felt intuitively that the bend and slant of the way she went were somehow outside any other angles or bends she had ever known. They led into the unknown and the dark, but it seemed to her obscurely that they led into deeper darkness and mystery than the merely physical, as if, though she could not put it clearly even into thoughts, the peculiar and exact lines of the tunnel had been carefully angled to lead through poly-dimensional space as well as through the underground — perhaps through time, too.

Way

“I wonder how many of the people who profess to believe in the leveling ideas of collectivism and egalitarianism really just believe that they themselves are good for nothing. I mean, how many leftists are animated by a quite reasonable self-loathing? In their hearts they know that they are not going to become scholars or inventors or industrialists or even ordinary good kind people. So they need a way to achieve that smugness for which the left is so justifiably famous. They need a way to achieve self-esteem without merit. Well, there is politics. In an egalitarian world everything will be controlled by politics, and politics requires no merit.”

P. J. O'Rourke (1947) American journalist

A Message to Redistributionists (1997)

People , World , Way , Idea

“To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humor of a scholar.”

Francis Bacon book Essays

Of Studies
Essays (1625)
Context: To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humor of a scholar. They perfect nature, and are perfected by experience: for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need proyning, by study; and studies themselves, do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience.

Study , Time

“The true test of any scholar's work is not what his contemporaries say, but what happens to his work in the next 25 or 50 years.”

Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer

As quoted in The Power of Choice (January 2007)
Context: The true test of any scholar's work is not what his contemporaries say, but what happens to his work in the next 25 or 50 years. And the thing that I will really be proud of is if some of the work I have done is still cited in the text books long after I am gone.

“Generally regarded as the foremost scholar, Don Panyong is equally deserving of popular encomium for the singular distinction which he has achieved in several other fields of human endeavour.”

Epifanio de los Santos (1871–1928) Filipino politician

Cayco, Libardo D. Epifanio de los Santos Cristobal. Manila, National Heroes Day. University of the Philippines. 1934.
BALIW

“And if he has no share or part with foolish errors, cannot be tossed about with every wind of doctrine, it is because, to be always governed by this love, is the same thing as to be always taught of God.
On the other hand, show me a scholar as full of learning, as the Vatican is of books, and he will be just as likely to give all that he has for the gospel-pearl, as he would be, if he was as rich as Croesus.”

William Law (1686–1761) English cleric, nonjuror and theological writer

¶ 164 - 165.
An Humble, Earnest and Affectionate Address to the Clergy (1761)
Context: Show me a man whose heart has no desire, or prayer in it, but to love God with his whole soul and spirit, and his neighbor as himself, and then you have shown me the man who knows Christ, and is known of him; the best and wisest man in the world, in whom the first paradisaical wisdom and goodness are come to life. Not a single precept in the gospel, but is the precept of his own heart, and the joy of that new-born heavenly love which is the life and light of his soul. In this man, all that came from the old serpent is trod under his feet, not a spark of self, of pride, of wrath, of envy, of covetousness, or worldly wisdom, can have the least abode in him, because that love, which fulfilleth the whole Law and the prophets, that love which is God and Christ, both in angels and men, is the love that gives birth, and life, and growth to everything that is either thought, or word, or action in him. And if he has no share or part with foolish errors, cannot be tossed about with every wind of doctrine, it is because, to be always governed by this love, is the same thing as to be always taught of God.
On the other hand, show me a scholar as full of learning, as the Vatican is of books, and he will be just as likely to give all that he has for the gospel-pearl, as he would be, if he was as rich as Croesus. Let no one here imagine, that I am writing against all human literature, arts and sciences, or that I wish the world to be without them. I am no more an enemy to them, than to the common useful labors of life. It is literal learning, verbal contention, and critical strife about the things of God, that I charge with folly and mischief to religion. And in this, I have all learned Christendom, both popish and Protestant on my side. For they both agree in charging each other with a bad and false gospel-state, because of that which their learning, logic, and criticism do for them. Say not then, that it is only the illiterate enthusiast that condemns human learning in the gospel kingdom of God. For when he condemns the blindness and mischief of popish logic and criticism, he has all the learned Protestant world with him; and when he lays the same charge to Protestant learning, he has a much larger kingdom of popish great scholars, logically and learnedly affirming the same thing. So that the private person, charging human learning with so much mischief to the church, is so far from being led by enthusiasm, that he is led by all the church-learning that is in the world.

Love , God , Books , Error

“It was said, with what truth we know not, that all Cambridge scholars call the cipher aught, and all Oxford scholars call it nought.”

Maria Edgeworth (1768–1849) Irish writer

Truth

“I'm like the king of a rain-country, rich
but sterile, young but with an old wolf's itch,
one who escapes his tutor's monologues,
and kills the day in boredom with his dogs;
nothing cheers him, darts, tennis, falconry,
his people dying by the balcony;
the bawdry of the pet hermaphrodite
no longer gets him through a single night;
his bed of fleur-de-lys becomes a tomb;
even the ladies of the court, for whom
all kings are beautiful, cannot put on
shameful enough dresses for this skeleton;
the scholar who makes his gold cannot invent
washes to cleanse the poisoned element;
even in baths of blood, Rome's legacy,
our tyrants' solace in senility,
he cannot warm up his shot corpse, whose food
is syrup-green Lethean ooze, not blood.”

Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) French poet

People , Food , Beauty , Dogs

“It was a long way down. Before she had gone very far the curious dizziness she had known before came over her again, a dizziness not entirely induced by the spirals she whirled around, but a deeper, atomic unsteadiness as if not only she but also the substances around her were shifting. There was something queer about the angles of those curves. She was no scholar in geometry or aught else, but she felt intuitively that the bend and slant of the way she went were somehow outside any other angles or bends she had ever known. They led into the unknown and the dark, but it seemed to her obscurely that they led into deeper darkness and mystery than the merely physical, as if, though she could not put it clearly even into thoughts, the peculiar and exact lines of the tunnel had been carefully angled to lead through poly-dimensional space as well as through the underground—perhaps through time, too.”

C. L. Moore (1911–1987) American author

Black God's Kiss (1934); pp. 10-11
Short fiction, Jirel of Joiry (1969)

Way , Time

“It is true that some of the teachings of these ancient religions or philosophies which by many ages preceded the respective eras of Mohammedanism and Christianity are now more or less degenerate. In addition, they have been grossly misunderstood and misinterpreted by Occidental scholars.”

Gottfried de Purucker (1874–1942) Author, Theosophist

Source: The Esoteric Tradition (1935), Chapter 11

Religion , Age

“Do you understand now the relationship between the question of spontaneous generation and the major problems that I listed in the beginning? But, gentlemen, in such a subject, rather than as poetry, pretty fancy and instinctive solutions, it is time for science, the true method resumes its duties and exercise. Here, it takes no religion, no philosophy, no atheism, no materialism, no spiritualism. I might even add: as a scholar, I do not mind. It is a matter of fact; I approached without a preconceived idea, too ready to declare, if the experiment had imposed upon me the confession, that there was a spontaneous generation, of which I am convinced today that those who assure it are blindfolded.”

Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) French chemist and microbiologist

Soirées scientifiques de la Sorbonne (1864)
Original: (fr) Comprenez-vous maintenant le lien qui existe entre la question des générations spontanées et ces grands problèmes que j'ai énumérés en commençant? Mais, messieurs, dans un pareil sujet, assez de poésie comme cela, assez de fantaisie et de solutions instinctives; il est temps que la science, la vraie méthode reprenne ses droits et les exerce. Il n'y a ici ni religion, ni philosophie, ni athéisme, ni matérialisme, ni spiritualisme qui tienne. Je pourrais même ajouter : Comme savant, peu m'importe. C'est une question de fait; je l'ai abordée sans idée préconçue, aussi prêt à déclarer, si l'expérience m'en avait imposé l'aveu, qu'il existe des générations spontanées, que je suis persuadé aujourd'hui que ceux qui les affirment ont un bandeau sur les veux.

Religion , Time , Understanding , Question

“Let us note finally that on this issue, Audrey’s book is representative of a wider concern to whitewash Aurangzeb. In their all-out war on Hinduism and specific Hindu ideas, the South Asia scholars tend to practise Groupthink; there is rarely anything original, they only outdo each other in how daring they can make their own articulation of ever the same position.”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

2010s, Hindu Dharma and the Culture Wars (2019)

War , Idea , Books , Making love

“Foreign scholars might have played the role which the Supreme Court judges rejected: that of independent arbitrators. But as it turned out, the established Western academics, to the extent that they cared to look into the Ayodhya debate at all, have only looked through the glasses which the India’s Marxist-Muslim combine has put on their noses.”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

2000s, Ayodhya: The Case Against the Temple (2002)

“It is not reassuring to watch the ease with which foreign scholars have absorbed or adopted the non-temple thesis from their Indian colleagues (whom they assume to be neutral observers) even without being shown any positive evidence. In academic circles in the West, my own restating the status quaestionis in terms of actual evidence has only earned me hateful labels and laughter, and this from big professors at big universities whose prestige is based on the widespread belief that scholarship goes by hard evidence, not politically fashionable opinions. Never has any of them offered hard evidence for the newly dominant view, or even just shown a little familiarity with the contents of the debate.”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

2000s, Ayodhya: The Case Against the Temple (2002)

Universe , Fashion , Hate , Laughter

“The VHP-mandated scholars, for their part, have not been aggressive enough to take the struggle into the enemy half of the field by focusing public attention on the quality of the evidence presented by the BMAC-mandated scholars and their allies in academe and the media. That is why the latter have gotten away with creating the false impression, at least among those unacquainted with the actual contents of the debate, that the pro-temple case is weak and fraudulent while, purely by implication, their own case must be unassailable.”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

2000s, Ayodhya: The Case Against the Temple (2002)

Falseness , Parting

“The VHP-mandated scholars have, in their argumentation, pointed out no less than four attempts where scholars belonging to the anti-temple party have tried to conceal or destroy documentary evidence. Those are of course cases where the attempt failed because it was noticed in time, but the question must be asked how many similar attempts have succeeded.”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

2000s, Ayodhya: The Case Against the Temple (2002)

Time , Question

“The next meeting was scheduled for the next day, January 25. But there, the BMAC scholars simply did not show up. The unambiguous result of the debate was this: the BMAC scholars have run away from the arena. They had not presented written evidence worth the name, they had not given a written refutation of the VHP scholars’ arguments, they had wriggled out of a face-to-face discussion on the accumulated evidence, and finally they had just stayed away. Thus ended the first attempt by the Government of India to find an amicable solution on the basis of genuine historical facts.”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

2000s, Ayodhya: The Case Against the Temple (2002)

“From Apollonius, true liberty, and unvariable steadfastness, and not to regard anything at all, though never so little, but right and reason: and always..that it was possible for the same man to be both vehement and remiss: a man not subject to be vexed, and offended with the incapacity of his scholars and auditors in his lectures and expositions.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

I, 5
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book I

“When I started to make translations I was just doing it intuitively, and my tendency was to stick to the original as much as possible. Then I gained more confidence in my own poetry and my own writing and I began to become less concerned about being strictly faithful to the original and more concerned with producing a good poem in English. What I have often found—especially in the translations that are done by scholars—is that they’re very faithful to the content of the original language, but in English they don’t really sound that good as poems.”

Francisco Aragón (1968) poet

On translating Spanish poetry into English in “Interview with Francisco Aragón: Latino Poetry From All Its Perspectives” https://www.sampsoniaway.org/literary-voices/2010/09/16/interview-with-francisco-aragon-latino-poetry-from-all-its-perspectives/ in Sampsonia Way (2010 Sept 16)

Self-confidence , Confidence , Making love , Faith

“Thousands of writers, of poets, of scholars, have laboured to increase knowledge, to dissipate error, and to create that atmosphere of scientific thought, without which the marvels of our century could never appeared. And these thousands of philosophers, of poets, of scholars, of inventors, have themselves been supported by the labour of past centuries. They have been upheld and nourished through life, both physically and mentally, by legions of workers and craftsmen of all sorts. They have drawn their motive force from the environment.”

Peter Kropotkin book The Conquest of Bread

Source: The Conquest of Bread (1892), Ch. 1 : Our Riches, p. 57

Support , Past , Knowledge , Appearance

“However, the fact that Khan is a Sharia scholar and an expert on Islamic jurisprudence makes it even clearer that Khan is an Islamist who thanked Saeed Ramadan, a father of the Muslim Brotherhood for using his sources. … Shouldn’t this suffice? To the anti-Christian crowds, it doesn’t, nothing will, nothing will ever will. To the Muslim Brotherhood, if the Muslim can produce a suicide bomber, the liberal can produce national suicide. And if in doubt, just see how one man (Khan) caused Donald Trump to decline a notch.”

Said Ramadan (1926–1995) Egyptian political activist

Walid Shoebat, What Every American Must Know About Sharia BEFORE They Vote: How Hillary Clinton Duped America By Pushing Khizr Khan, A Sharia Muslim Scholar http://shoebat.com/2016/08/04/what-every-american-must-know-about-sharia-before-they-vote-how-hillary-clinton-duped-america-by-pushing-khizr-khan-a-sharia-muslim-scholar/ (August 4, 2016)
About

Suicide , Making love

“Here information and philosophies were exchanged, together with all manner of goods. This was a court whose energies were not devoted to maintaining itself unchanged for eternity, but to every kind of new idea and lively, humane discussion, which welcomed fresh thought not as a threat to its existence but as a very necessity to its continued well-being, whose wealth was devoted to experiment in the arts and sciences, to supporting those who were needy, to aiding thinkers and scholars. The Bright Empire’s brightness would come no longer from the glow of putrefaction but from the light of reason and good will.”

Michael Moorcock (1939) English writer, editor, critic

Book 1, Chapter 3 “On the Red Road” (p. 160)
The Elric Cycle, The Fortress of the Pearl (1989)

Light , Support , Wealth , Art

“The killing of infidels by any method including martyrdom (suicide) operations has been sanctified by many scholars even if it means killing innocent Muslims…The shedding of Muslim blood…is allowed in order to avoid the greater evil of disrupting jihad.”

Abu Musab Zarqawi (1966–2006) Jordanian jihadist

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in quotes https://www.irishtimes.com/news/abu-musab-al-zarqawi-in-quotes-1.786124 The Irish Times (18th May 2005)

Suicide , Evil

“Common sense might suggest that here was a striking example of a refutable hypothesis that had in fact been refuted. Indo-European scholars should have scrapped all their historical reconstructions and started again from scratch. But that is not what happened. Vested interests and academic posts were involved. Almost without exception the scholars in question managed to persuade themselves that despite appearances the theories of the philologists and the hard evidence of archeology could be made to fit together. The trick was to think of the horse-riding Aryans as conquerors of the cities of the Indus civilization in the same way that the Spanish conquistadores were conquerors of the cities of Mexico and Peru or the Israelites of the Exodus were conquerors of Jericho. The lowly Dasa of the Rig Veda, who had previously been thought of as primitive savages, were now reconstructed as members of a high civilization.”

Edmund Leach (1910–1989) British anthropologist

Sir Edmund Leach. "Aryan invasions over four millennia. In Culture through Time, Anthropological Approaches, edited by E. Ohnuki-Tierney, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1990, pp. 227-245.

Question , Horse , Thinking , Appearance

“So we have scholars accepting two different paradigms, both of which complement each other and should therefore have been treated as two parts of a whole: on the one hand, a widespread network of archaeological sites of a vast, highly-developed civilization (the Harappan civilization) lasting over thousands of years, which has allegedly left no literary records at all although it had a writing system; and, on the other, a full-fledged developed culture and civilization (the Vedic civilization) which has left a vast and detailed body of organized literature (unparalleled by any other known civilization of the same period) although it had no system of writing at all, but which has left absolutely no archaeological traces behind, both located in more or less the very same area!”

Shrikant Talageri (1958) Indian author

This contradiction was first pointed out by David Frawley
The Rigveda and the Avesta (2008)

Literature , Parting

“But it is time this state of affairs came to an end and accountability is brought into the AIT-vs.-OIT debate. AIT scholars can not be allowed to get away with this kind of compartmentalized discussions any more, where they can postulate any theory or situation to answer the objection, or the uncomfortable fact which cannot be swept under the carpet, that is before them at the moment, even when this theory or postulated situation sharply contradicts, or is totally incompatible with, what they postulate in other contexts.”

Shrikant Talageri (1958) Indian author

The Rigveda and the Avesta (2008)

Time

“The reader is struck by Witzel’s repeated disparaging remarks against the Puranas and their utility in the derivation of Indian history. Scholars who have read Witzel’s publications in detail inform me that there is nothing in them that betrays even a faint understanding and first-hand knowledge of this genre of literature on his part. Thus, Witzel’s repeated attempts to downgrade Puranas as a valid source of history (which, albeit should be used with caution) merely reflect his attempt to hide his own ignorance.”

Shrikant Talageri (1958) Indian author

Michael Witzel – An Examination of his Review of my Book (2001)

Reading , History , Understanding , Knowledge

“Sergent’s last thrust represents the unkindest cut in this whole smear campaign. It is not we who have avoided debate. It is these Western scholars who have chosen to conduct a spit-and-run campaign from a safe distance, while restricting their criticism of our theory (elaborated by us in our earlier book) to name-calling and label-sticking rather than to demolition of our arguments.”

Shrikant Talageri (1958) Indian author

The Rigveda: A Historical Analysis (2000), Chapter 9 : Michael Witzel - An Examination of Western Vedic Scholarship

Books

“Other scholars, when they deign to notice the evidence in the PurANas in respect of the indigenous origin of the Aryans and their expansion outside India, tend to dismiss this evidence as irrelevant on the ground that it is allegedly contradictory to the evidence of the Rigveda.”

Shrikant Talageri (1958) Indian author

The Rigveda: A Historical Analysis (2000), Chapter 8 : Misinterpretations of Rigvedic History

“The sooner these anti-invasionist scholars realize that linguistics is a science which cannot, and indeed need not, be wished away, and the sooner they decided to expend their energies in the study, rather than the dismissal, of this science, the better they will be able to serve their own cause.”

Shrikant Talageri (1958) Indian author

The Rigveda: A Historical Analysis (2000), Chapter 8 : Misinterpretations of Rigvedic History

Science , Study

“In keeping with a pattern which will be familiar to anyone studying the writings of supporters of the Aryan invasion theory, such unnatural or anomalous phenomena do not make these scholars rethink their theory; it only makes them try to think of ways to maintain their theory in the face of inconvenient facts.”

Shrikant Talageri (1958) Indian author

The Rigveda: A Historical Analysis (2000), Chapter 7 : The Indo-European Homeland

Study , Support , Thinking , Way

“In such a situation, where any scholar, Indian or Western, who finds that the facts indicate an Indian homeland, has to struggle against a strong tide of prejudice in Western academic circles (not to mention the deeply entrenched leftist lobby in Indian academic circles), it is clear that establishing the truth about the original homeland is, practically speaking, an uphill task.”

Shrikant Talageri (1958) Indian author

The Rigveda: A Historical Analysis (2000), Chapter 7 : The Indo-European Homeland

Truth , Strong

“Compliance with an authority is ingrained in the human condition. Statists of all stripes use this psychological technique to garner support for political conquests, domestic and foreign. These conquests mimic the historical policies of Italian Fascism, German National Socialism, and Russian Sovietism, which few scholars want to expose, especially when their own ideology stands in sharp accord with Fascist-Marxist mindset. Yet many political scientists go out of their way to misidentify or ignore the roots of Mussolini’s syndicalist, socialist, and Marxist ideology, perhaps because of their own closely held political beliefs. Whatever the reason, scholars have gone to great lengths to obscure Mussolini’s true Marxian intentions.”

L. K. Samuels (1951) American writer

Source: Killing History: The False Left-Right Political Spectrum and the Battle between the ‘Free Left’ and the ‘Statist Left', (2019), p. 121

Way , Support

“Since the time of Aristarchus, the great Alexandrian scholar, it has been the rule among philologists not to base the interpretation of Homeric words on references to classical Greek, and not to allow themselves to be influenced by the usage of a later generation when investigating Homeric speech. Today we may expect even richer rewards from this rule than Aristarchus hoped to glean for himself. Let us explain Homer in no terms but his own, and our understanding of the work will be the fresher for it. Once the words are grasped with greater precision in their meaning and relevance, they will suddenly recover all their ancient splendour. The scholar too, like the restorer of an old painting, may yet in many places remove the dark coating of dust and varnish which the centuries have drawn over the picture, and thus give back to the colours their original brilliance.”

Bruno Snell book The Discovery of the Mind: The Greek Origins of European Thought

"classical Greek" here refers to Greek in the classical period spanning approximately the time between 5th and 4th centuries BC, i.e., in contrast to Homeric Greek from Archaic Greece.
Source: The Discovery of the Mind: The Greek Origins of European Thought (1953), p. 1

Painting , Time , Hope , Understanding

“Art is long, life short, judgment difficult, opportunity transient. To act is easy, to think is hard; to act according to our thought is troublesome. Every beginning is cheerful: the threshold is the place of expectation. The boy stands astonished, his impressions guide him: he learns sportfully, seriousness comes on him by surprise. Imitation is born with us: what should be imitated is not easy to discover. The excellent is rarely found, more rarely valued. The height charms us, the steps to it do not: with the summit in our eye, we love to walk along the plain. It is but a part of art that can be taught: the artist needs it all. Who knows it half, speaks much, and is always wrong: who knows it wholly, inclines to act, and speaks seldom or late. The former have no secrets and no force : the instruction they can give is like baked bread, savory and satisfying for a single day; but flour cannot be sown, and seed-corn ought not to be ground. Words are good, but they are not the best. The best is not to be explained by words. The spirit in which we act is the highest matter. Action can be understood and again represented by the spirit alone. No one knows what he is doing while he acts aright, but of what is wrong we are always conscious. Whoever works with symbols only is a pedant, a hypocrite, or a bungler. There are many such, and they like to be together. Their babbling detains the scholar: their obstinate mediocrity vexes even the best. The instruction which the true artist gives us opens the mind; for, where words fail him, deeds speak. The true scholar learns from the known to unfold the unknown, and approaches more and more to being a master.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German writer, artist, and politician

Book VII Chapter IX
Wilhelm Meister's Wanderjahre (Journeyman Years) (1821–1829)

Learning , Boy , Art , Thinking

“But how to write about a man who lived such a contemplative life marked by so few striking external events? He was extraordinarily private, and he kept his own person invisible in his writing. I had none of the material that ordinarily lends itself to narrative—no family dramas, no love affairs, jealousies, curious anecdotes, feuds, spats, or reunions. He had a large correspondence, but after his death his colleagues followed his instructions and removed almost all personal comments from his letters. No, not much external drama in his life: most scholars regard Spinoza as a placid and gentle soul—some compare his life to that of Christian saints, some even to Jesus.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Irvin D. Yalom, in his novel The Spinoza Problem, prologue. (New York: Basic Books, 2012)
S - Z

Family , Soul , Making love , Personality

“Philopon: The misfortune of this man has always touched me in an extraordinary way. He lived in moderation, alone and irreproachable; he renounced all human idols and devoted his entire life to reflection, and look what happened! In the labyrinth of his meditations, he goes astray and, out of error, maintains much that agrees very little with his innocent way of life and that the most depraved scoundrel might wish for in order to be able to indulge his evil desires with impunity. How unjust is the irreconcilable hatred of scholars towards someone so unfortunate!”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Moses Mendelssohn, in his Philosophical Writings (1755–77) [original in German]
M - R

Way , Life , Error , Evil

“The Jewish tradition has two distinct tendencies: the more fundamental one, represented by the philosophers and poets and scholars who were interested only in Jewish issues and in the Jewish Weltanschauung; and the other tendency associated with great figures such as Spinoza or Einstein, and to a certain extent also Heinrich Heine, and which applied the traditions of Jewish thinking to other cultures, including German culture, and to other issues. It is not difficult to see how a double identity developed among Jews.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Daniel Barenboim, " Germans, Jews, and Music https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2001/03/29/germans-jews-and-music/" (The New York Review of Books, 29 March 2001)
A - F, Daniel Barenboim

Thinking

“It is the most obvious fact that Jerzy Vetulani is an extraordinary personality who masterfully combines deep knowledge with the art of rhetoric, form and beauty of expression. But I have trouble answering the question: Who is Professor Vetulani really? There is no doubt that he is an eminent scholar, a star of Polish science, but he is also an unconventional man – what shocked me two years ago when he marched in the first line of the Cannabis Legalization March.”

Jerzy Vetulani (1936–2017) Polish scientist

Jacek Purchla, art historian, director of the International Cultural Centre in Kraków and the President of the Polish National Commission for UNESCO. An introduction to Vetulani's lecture during the GAP Symposium in Szczyrk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtGOlcQaIdM (in Polish), January 2016.

Question , Personality , Beauty , Star

“He was an extraordinary man – a colorful bird against the background of academic gray. A scholar and erudite, he was witty, malicious, surprising, uncompromising and courageous. His knowledge and talent for lecturing made him a valued popularizer of neuroscience. He could simplify even very complex phenomena, showing their essence and meaning. Non-standard interpretations of the reality that he presented at the lectures were witty, but also deep and attracted fascinated youth. He loved Krakow – he knew everything about it and was a great guide. There is grief and anger in us that he was driven over at the pedestrian crossing by a delivery van.”

Jerzy Vetulani (1936–2017) Polish scientist

Małgorzata Kossut, neuroscientist, member of the Polish Academy of Sciences and friend of Vetulani. Debate on depression: in memoriam Professor Jerzy Vetulani at the XXIst Science Festival in Warsaw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AS-1L-NZYXQ (in Polish), 30th September 2017.

Courage , Anger , Knowledge , Bird

“Even after his conversion to Islam, the Hindu remained an object of abhorrence… Barani is so maliciously vituperative against Hindus that even many modem Muslim scholars feel embarrassed at his language and find it difficult to defend him. It must, however, be remembered that Barani belonged to the common run of Muslim theologians and chroniclers. He was a personal friend of men like Amir Khusrau and Ala Hasan Sijzi and was a disciple of no less a Sufi than Shaikh Nizamuddin Auliya. He possessed charming manners and was known for his wit and humour. But in the case of Hindus, his wit turned into rage. He is copiously quoted by future chroniclers like Nizamuddin Ahmad, Badaoni and Farishtah, who all praise him highly. Most of medieval Muslim chroniclers wrote in the idiom of Barani; only he excelled them all. All medieval chroniclers were scholars of Islamic scriptures and law. They often quote from these to defend or justify the actions of their kings in relation to their non-Muslim subjects.”

Ziauddin Barani (1285–1357) Indian Muslim historian and political thinker (1285–1357)

Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 3

Law , Personality , Future , Relation ships

“Scholars have an inordinate respect for long books, and have a terrible rancune against those that attempt to cheat on them. They cannot bear to imagine that short-cuts are possible, that specialism is not an inevitability, that learning need not be stoically endured.”

Nick Land (1962) British philosopher

They cannot bear writers allegro, and when they read such texts—and even pretend to revere them—the result is (this is not a description without generosity) 'unappetizing'.
Source: The Thirst for Annihilation: Georges Bataille and Virulent Nihilism (1992), Chapter 2: "The curse of the sun", p. 25 (original emphasis)

Imagination , Books , Learning , Cheating

“Researchers of the peninsula will get nowhere unless they take a break from their quantifying now and then, and enter into an imaginative sympathy with Korean nationalism, the way any sensible literary scholar assumes a Christian frame of mind when reading Bunyan or Blake.”

Brian Reynolds Myers (1963) American professor of international studies

Having done that one begins to understand why the North appeals strongly to an influential minority in the South. They don’t want to live up there anymore than a moderate Muslim wants to live under the Taliban, but they see it as the purer Korea in many ways, the real deal.
2010s, League Confederation Goes Outer-Track (September 2018)

Way , Imagination , Reading

“Generations will remember him as a fine Guru, scholar and a stalwart who brought Yoga into the lives of many across the world.”

B.K.S. Iyengar (1918–2014) Indian yoga teacher and scholar

Narendra Modi. Prime Minister of India
Yogacharya B.K.S. Iyengar passes away at 95

World

“His first teacher was his brother-in-law, a Brahmin scholar who had set up a school of yoga at the Jaganmohan Palace, and who sometimes denied his student food if his performance was deemed inadequate. He then a teenager, was the youngest member of the Maharaja of Mysore’s entourage, and was asked to demonstrate his ability to stretch and bend his body for visiting dignitaries and guests.”

B.K.S. Iyengar (1918–2014) Indian yoga teacher and scholar

B. K. S. Iyengar, Who Helped Bring Yoga to the West, Dies at 95

School , Teachers , Law , Food

“His was the variegated and distinguished career of the eminent jurist, scholar, educationist, author and linguist. During his life span of four score and seven years symbolised significant achievement at each important stage, bringing honour and glory not only to himself but also to the institutions which he served and to our country.”

Mohammad Hidayatullah (1905–1992) 11th Chief Justice of India

Full Court Reference in Memory of The Late Justice Mohammad Hidayatullah

Life , Country

“President with a mind of his own, was a politician of high values, a distinguished parliamentarian, and a great scholar. His brilliant academic and political career was a saga of dedication and abiding commitment to the pursuit of higher learning and public service.”

Shankar Dayal Sharma (1918–1999) Indian politician

A.B.Vajpayee in: p. 233.
Commissions and Omissions by Indian Presidents and Their Conflicts with the Prime Ministers Under the Constitution: 1977-2001

Learning

“He was educated by 14 palace tutors. He remembered a childhood stay with his mother in London, when he folded up as a paper boat a doctors’ report about his being too fat, and set it adrift on the Thames, so that she would not see it. He studied economics at Travancore University, and was a Sanskrit scholar.”

Uthradom Thirunal Marthanda Varma (1922–2013) Maharaja of Travancore

Anne Keleny, in Uthradom Thirunal Marthanda Varma: The Maharajah of Travancore 4 March 2014 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/uthradom-thirunal-marthanda-varma-the-maharajah-of-travancore-9169048.html

Universe , Education , Study , Childhood

“The Maharaja was not only a great scholar but also liked the company of scholars and to listen to their words of wisdom and knowledge. He used to arrange study circles regularly in a serene place in the City.”

Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar (1919–1974) Indian writer

A.V. Narasimha Murthy, in "When the Maharaja’s son failed an examination".

Knowledge , Study , Wisdom

“Think back through all the eras of history—the major ones, the tiny obscure ones known only to scholars. Can you think of a man, ever, who was capable of fashioning the future development of mankind to suit his own idea of it—no matter how noble that ideal may have been? Wouldn’t that be just another form of opinion control—no matter how splendid the conception?”

Mark Clifton book They'd Rather Be Right

Kennedy did not turn around.
“It takes a great deal of faith in mankind to keep from directing it the way we think it should go,” he said at last.
Source: They'd Rather Be Right (1954), p. 92.

History , Future , Thinking , Idea

“The best foreign account of India that this age produced was written by Abu Rlhan, better known as Alberuni, a contemporary of Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni. While the ruthless conqueror was harrying India by fire and sword, destroying and plundering its cities and temples, the great Arabic scholar engaged himself in studying the culture and civilization of the country. He learned Sanskrit and studied its different branches of literature. The bulky volume which he wrote is in many respects the most rational and comprehensive account of India ever written by a foreigner until modern times. He is singularly free from religious enthusiasm, bordering on fanaticism, and the racial superiority-complex which mark the Muslim writings of the age. He patiently laboured to acquire knowledge of Indian society and culture in a laudabile spirit of quest for truth, and brought to his task a liberal and rational mind enriched by profound knowledge, remarkable for his age.”

Al-Biruni (973–1048) Persian scholar and polymath

The History and Culture of the Indian People: The Vedic age, ed. R.C. Majumdar https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.110240/2015.110240.The-Vedic-Age-Vol1_djvu.txt

Study , Time , Country , Learning

“Aged Totaram Ji died without suffering. He was an ornament to the Sabramati Ashram. He was not a scholar, yet he was wise. He was a collector of bhajans, but not a scholar of music. With his single-wired instrument he used to charm the people of the ashram. Just as he was, so was his wife. But Totaram died first! Wherever people have gathered, there are conflicts. I do not remember any single incident in which this couple participated, or were in any way the cause. Totaram loved the earth. The fields were his life. He came to the ashram years ago and did not ever leave. They found unfailing encouragement from him. He was a strong Hindu, but his heart was equally disposed towards Hindus, Muslims, and those of other faiths. On him was not even the smell of untouchability, and he had no vices at all. He took no part in politics. Still, his love for his country was strong enough to stand any comparison. Renunciation was easy for him. He adored the ashram.”

Totaram Sanadhya (1876–1947) Fijian writer

Mohandas Gandhi, quoted in T. Sanadhya, My Twenty-One Years in the Fiji Islands (English translation by J.D. Kelly & U.K. Singh, Fiji Museum, 1991), pp. 5-6 http://au.geocities.com/fibiographies/S/SText/TotaramSanadhya.htm.

Faith , Country , Strong , Suffering

“If you want to see what’s wrong with Ivy League education, look at The Beauty Myth, that book by Naomi Wolf. This is a woman who graduated from Yale magna cum laude, is a Rhodes scholar, and she cannot write a coherent paragraph. This is a woman who cannot do historical analysis, and she is a Rhodes scholar? If you want to see the damage done to intelligent women today in the Ivy League, look at that book. It’s a scandal. Naomi Wolf is an intelligent woman. She has been ill-served by her education. But if you read Lacan, this is the result. Your brain turns to pudding. She has a case to make. She cannot make it. She’s full of paranoid fantasies about the world. Her education was completely removed from reality.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Sex, Art and American Culture : New Essays (1992), p. 262

Reading , Beauty , Intelligence , Wolf

“Throughout the social sciences today, the dominant form of modeling is based upon the rational-choice paradigm. Game theory, in particular, is typically based upon the assumption of rational choice. In my view, the reason for the dominance of the rational-choice approach is not that scholars think it is realistic. Nor is game theory used solely because it offers good advice to a decision maker, because its unrealistic assumptions undermine much of its value as a basis for advice.”

Robert Axelrod book The Complexity of Cooperation

Introduction
The Complexity of Cooperation (1997)

Science , Game , Thinking , Decision

“I do not think that the time is right to talk about democracy in its absolute concept. Arab societies marginalized their modern thinkers and scholars for the elders who stopped their time before fourteen centuries, which is the difference between us and them .. Therefore, it was necessary to work on spreading a more realistic culture in which modern science has a more open place. Take, for example, if we asked the Tunisian people (he meant former President Bourguiba then and not now) to hold a referendum on his position on women's education, then I can assure that 99.99% will refuse her education.”

Habib Bourguiba (1903–2000) Tunisian politician

Democracy , Time , People , Thinking

“One man stands head and shoulders above his contemporary scholars: head and shoulders, some hold, above the Middle Ages: John Scotus Erigena.”

John Scotus Eriugena (810–877) Irish theologian

Helen Waddell The Wandering Scholars (Harmondsworth: Penguin, [1927] 1954) pp. 77-78.
Criticism

Age

“Scholars still debate whether Columbus brought syphilis to the New World or vice versa. But it cannot be doubted that the 2008 world meltdown carries on its label the words Made in America.”

Paul A. Samuelson (1915–2009) American economist

"Farewell to Friedman-Hayek Libertarian Capitalism", Tribune Media Services (2008)
New millennium

World

“[M]any scholars of today in Europe and the United States still cherish the existence of a "Germanic world" long antedating medieval and modern Germany.”

Walter Goffart (1934) American historian

Source: Quotaes, Barbarian Tides (2010), p. 40

World

“Germanic collectivity exists in linguistics but never existed anywhere else... [A]n "early Germanic world"... had no existence anywhere until it took form in the minds of scholars in sixteenth-century Europe and was thoughtlessly espoused by everyone else.”

Walter Goffart (1934) American historian

Source: Quotaes, Barbarian Tides (2010), p. 25

World

“Unfortunately, scholars tend to cite a colleague's mere hypothesis as an argument of authority. So many certainties in this field are merely someone’s casual opinion quoted over and over again.”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

2000s, Asterisk in bharopiyasthan: Minor writings on the Aryan invasion debate (2007)

Quotes

“Some European scholars who called Max Muller a racist are not far wrong.”

V. T. Rajshekar (1932) Indian conspiracy theorist

Brahminism. (2015) Gyan Publishing House

“The Indus civilization has challenged scholars’ understanding since its discovery some eighty years ago, and in recent years the application of systematic and problem-orientated research, coupled with much new and unexpected data, has overturned many previous interpretations.”

Jane McIntosh (1950) Scottish archaeologist and author

Source: Jane McIntosh, The Ancient Indus Valley, 2008

Problem , Understanding

“My English name is Bowinn Ma, but in Chinese, it’s Ma Bo Wen. Ma literally translates as “horse,” which is the family name, and Bo Wen literally translates to “plentiful script.” But what it means can be roughly translated as “ocean of knowledge” or “broad scholar.””

Bowinn Ma (1985) Canadian politician

It means someone who has a broad understanding of many things and someone who has the wisdom to use this knowledge in a good way. It represents what my parents and grandparents had hoped I would become as an adult. In English, my name is just a name, a series of sounds used to identify me. But in my traditional language, those two simple syllables are a culmination of all of the hopes and dreams that my family have had of me since my birth — aspirations that could never truly be translated properly across cultures in as succinct a way.
British Columbia Legislative Hansard, March 12, 2018: INDIGENOUS LANGUAGES
Meaning of Name

Family , Horse , Knowledge

“Ethics and honesty, [are] rare amongst scholars working on the Indian past.”

Shereen Ratnagar Indian archaeologist

quoted in Elst, Koenraad (2007). Asterisk in bharopiyasthan: Minor writings on the Aryan invasion debate.

Past

“Having established the limits beyond which partisanship ceases to be scientifically legitimate, let me argue the case in favour of legitimate partisanship, both from the point of view of the scientific or scholarly discipline and from that of the cause to which the scholar feels committed.”

Eric Hobsbawm (1917–2012) British academic historian and Marxist historiographer

Chap. 9 : Partisanship
On History (1997)

Feeling

“I am not a soldier, but a preacher and teacher and could offer myself as a religious scholar and orator and I am willing to accept a position as that for the Al Qaeda organization.”

Sulaiman Abu Ghaith (1965) One of Al-Qaeda's official spokesmen

Source: Kronos US v Sulaiman Abu Ghayth Statement https://kronosadvisory.com/Kronos_US_v_Sulaiman_Abu_Ghayth_Statement.1.pdf (July 2001)

Teachers

“It is quite bizarre that scholars trying to prove a point discredit their own case by using a proven forgery without any comment.”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

Source: 2000s, Ayodhya: The Case Against the Temple (2002)

“Critiques of the prison industrial complex undertaken by abolitionist activists and scholars are very much linked to critiques of the global persistence of racism. Antiracist and other social justice movements are incomplete with attention to the politics of imprisonment.”

Angela Davis Are Prisons Obsolete?

Source: Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003), Chapter Five

Justice

“A scholar can never let mere wrongness get in the way of the theory.”

China Miéville Embassytown

Source: “And there aren’t any.”
“Mmm,” I said. “Awkward.”
“That’s defeatist talk. I’ll cobble something together. A scholar can never let mere wrongness get in the way of the theory.”
Source: Embassytown (2011), Chapter 0.3 (p. 37)

Way

“Eminent scholars repeatedly make the logically contradictory claim that colonialism was both too disruptive and not disruptive enough.”

Bruce Gilley (1966) researcher

Source: The Case for Colonialism: A Response to My Critics, Page 5 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/352039835_The_Case_for_Colonialism_A_Response_to_My_Critics The case for colonialism, Gilley, 2017