The inertia of the human mind and its resistance to innovation are most clearly demonstrated not, as one might expect, read more

The inertia of the human mind and its resistance to innovation are most clearly demonstrated not, as one might expect, by the ignorant mass- which is easily swayed once its imagination is caught- but by professionals with a vested interest in tradition and in the monopoly of learning. Innovation is a twofold threat to academic mediocrities: it endangers their oracular authority, and it evokes the deeper fear that their whole, laboriously constructed intellectual edifice might collapse. The academic backwoodsmen have been the curse of genius from Aristarchus to Darwin and Freud; they stretch, a solid and hostile phalanx of pedantic mediocrities, across the centuries.

The trouble with people is not that they don't know but that they know so much that ain't so.

The trouble with people is not that they don't know but that they know so much that ain't so.

Rudeness luxuriates in the absence of self-respect.

Rudeness luxuriates in the absence of self-respect.

Idealism without realism is impotent. Realism without idealism is immoral.

Idealism without realism is impotent. Realism without idealism is immoral.

Our species is the only creative species, and it has only one creative instrument, the individual mind and spirit of read more

Our species is the only creative species, and it has only one creative instrument, the individual mind and spirit of a man. Nothing was ever created by two men. There are no good collaborations, whether in music, in art, in poetry, in mathematics, in philosophy. Once the miracle of creation has taken place, the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything. The preciousness lies in the lonely mind of a man.

The ideas which now pass for brilliant innovations and advances are in fact mere revivals of ancient errors, and a read more

The ideas which now pass for brilliant innovations and advances are in fact mere revivals of ancient errors, and a further proof of the dictum that those who are ignorant of the past are condemned to repeat it.

If you are all wrapped up in yourself, you are overdressed.

If you are all wrapped up in yourself, you are overdressed.

There is an accumulative cruelty in a number of men, though none in particular are ill-natured.

There is an accumulative cruelty in a number of men, though none in particular are ill-natured.

From the saintly and single-minded idealist to the fanatic is often but a step.

From the saintly and single-minded idealist to the fanatic is often but a step.