Quotes Tagged "academia"

There are times when wisdom cannot be found in the chambers of parliament or the halls of academia but at the unpretentious setting of the kitchen table.

People who are not physically or financially attractive tend to apply themselves academically more than those who actually get great sex.

The only ethical principle which has made science possible is that the truth shall be told all the time. If we do not penalize false statements made in error, we open up the way for false statements by intention. And a false statement of fact, made deliberately, is the most serious crime a scientist can commit.

To make a deliberate falsification for personal gain is the last, worst depth to which either scholar or artist can descend in work or life. (Letter to Muriel St. Clare Byrne, 8 September 1935)

See that the mind is honest, first; the rest may follow or not as God wills. [That] the fundamental treason to the mind ... is the one fundamental treason which the scholar's mind must not allow is the bond uniting all the Oxford people in the last resort.

Why but Learning would not be made common. Yea but Learning cannot be too common, and the commoner the better. Why but who is not jealous, his Mistresse should be so prostitute? Yea but this Mistress is like ayre, fire, water, the more breathed the clearer; the more extended the warmer; the more drawne the sweeter. It were inhumanitie to coop her up, and worthy forfeiture to conceal her. Why but Schollers should have some privilege of preheminence. So have they: they onely are worthy Translators. Why but the vulgar should not knowe all. No, they can not for all this; nor even Schollers for much more: I would, both could and knew much more than either doth or can. Why but all would not be knowne of all. No nor can: much more we know not than we know: all know something, none know all: would all know all? they must breake ere they be so bigge.

In all professional endeavors, rigorous standards of accuracy are required. Scholars cherish their freedom of expression. But full freedom cannot be experienced if part of one’s knowledge is ruled “out-of-bounds” by edicts of men. Spiritual truth cannot be ignored—especially divine commandments.

These are quite obviously the books that nobody reads,’ said Rocky, studying their titles. ‘But it’s a comfort to know that they are here if you ever should want to read them. I’m sure I should find them more entertaining than the more up-to-date ones. Wild Beasts and their Ways; Five Years with the Congo Cannibals; With Camera and Pen in Northern Nigeria; Sunshine and Storm in Rhodesia. I wish people still wrote books with titles like that. Nowadays I believe it simply isn’t done to show a photograph of “The Author with his Pygmy Friends”—we have become too depressingly scientific.

What I learned on my own I still remember

What is the matter with universities is that the students are school children, whereas it is of the very essence of university education that they should be adults.

The humanities should constitute the core of any university worth the name.

Universities promote diversity. On April 24, 1997, 62 research universities led by Harvard bought a full-page advertisement in the New York Times that justified racial preferences in university admissions by explaining that diversity is a “value that is central to the very concept of education in our institutions.” Lee Bollinger, who has been president of the University of Michigan and of Columbia, once claimed that diversity “is as essential as the study of the Middle Ages, of international politics and of Shakespeare.” Many companies and universities have a “chief diversity officer” who reports directly to the president. In 2006, Michael J. Tate was vice president for equity and diversity of Washington State University. He had an annual budget of three million dollars, a full time staff of 55, and took part in the highest levels of university decision-making. There were similarly powerful “chief diversity officers” at Harvard, Berkeley, the University of Virginia, Brown, and the University of Michigan. In 2006, the University of Wisconsin at La Crosse decided that diversity was so important that its beneficiaries—students—should pay for it. It increased in-state tuition by 24 percent, from $5,555 to $6,875, to cover the costs of recruitment to increase diversity.

A 2008 Wall Street Journal article entitled “America’s Universities are Living a Diversity Lie” summed up findings in this area: 'To this day, few colleges have even tried to establish that their race-conscious admissions policies yield broad educational benefits. The research is so fuzzy and methodologically weak that some strident proponents of affirmative action admit that social science is not on their side. In reality, colleges profess a deep belief in the educational benefits of their affirmative-action policies mainly to save their necks. They know that, if the truth came out, courts could find them guilty of illegal discrimination against white and Asian Americans.' The New York Times agrees, noting that decades of promoting diversity have not succeeded in getting students to mix. The article concludes: 'No one has a formula for success; there is not even a consensus about what success would look like. Experts say that diversity programs on college campuses amount to a constantly evolving experiment, which in some cases in the past may have done more harm than good.

K-12 teaching is a low-status profession in this country, and in academia, teaching (what is already known) is less highly valued than research (expanding what is known). Teaching teachers is then the lowest of the low, totem pole-wise.

I am concerned only with the proper training of the mind to encounter and deal with the formidable mass of undigested problems presented to it by the modern world. For the tools of learning are the same, in any and every subject; and the person who knows how to use them will, at any age, get the mastery of a new subject in half the time and with a quarter of the effort expended by the person who has not the tools at his command.

The problem with studying is that it gets in the way of education.

Academia is a rarified culture, especially an Ivy League academic background.

Biography is, simply, the orphan of academia.