"Every folly must run its round; and so, I suppose must that of self-learning, and self-sufficiency; of rejecting the knowledge acquired in past ages, and starting on the new ground of intuition. When sobered by experience I hope our successors will turn their attention to the advantages of education. . . . They commit their pupils to the theatre of the world with just taste enough of learning to be alienated from industrious pursuits, and not enough to do service in the ranks of science." John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, July 13, 1813

"There is no hope of reconciling these opposed notions of modernity. For R.A.M. Stevenson, the avant-garde is a rabble of pretenders who generate fads for their own dubious, too worldly purposes. Sargent, on the other hand, possesses a timeless body of knowledge for the benefit of his era's most refined audiences." Carter Ratliff, ed., John Singer Sargent

"The habit of analysing one's sensations and of controlling the slightest impulses of one's soul to such an extent as to be habitually on one's guard against the natural tendency to mingle what one imagines with what one knows, is the privilege of a very few." --Père Hippolyte Delehaye, The Legends of the Saints.

The decided Vulcanist always sees through the spectacles of a Vulcanist; and every Neptunist, and every professor of the newest elevation-theory, through his own . . . I am inclined to support the old truth that we have only eyes and ears for what we know. The musician, by profession hears, in an orchestral performance, every instrument and every single tone, whilst one unacquainted with the art is wrapped up in the massive effect of the whole." Conversations of Goethe

At the time [the Eighteenth century] reason was the central idea of all philosophic thought. Knowledge was regarded as the universal solvent. . . . For what does Masonry exist? The ultimate purpose is to perfect men--to make them better, wiser, and consequently happier. But the means of this perfection was a general diffusion of knowledge." --Roscoe Pound

"When one begins to think sadly what does indicating a line of thought amount to-people will go to and for over it without remembering you. It is well to recall that this is universal. Malthus ran a rapier through the vitals of humbugs a century and quarter ago, and one still meets them walking happily in the streets not knowing they are dead. . . .. I think morals are the superior politenesses that absorb the shock of force but I don't think them the cosmic ultimate, or even the human. But this is between ourselves as such a proposition unexplained would be caviare to the general." Holmes letter to Frankfurter, May 21, 1926,

"Opinions are at best provisional hypotheses, inadequately tested. The more they are tested, after the tests are well scrutinized, the more assurance we may assume, but they are never absolute." Judge Learned Hand letter to Holmes, June 22, 1918

--Jon Anderson, In Sepia