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Erudition Quotes

Browse 59 quotes about Erudition.

Erudition Quotes

“It is usually unbearably painful to read a book by an author who knows way less than you do, unless the book is a novel.”

BookStoriesWisdomHumorFunnyPainSufferingQuotesLiteratureUnderstandingGriefEducationConsciousnessFictionKnowledgeNovelLearningToo MuchSadnessAwarenessIgnoranceHumourBooksSorrowDespairPerceptionHeartbreakJokesHumorousCapacityAccountsMiseryEntertainmentAppreciationIgnorantCommandEducatedRealizationNarrativeAccomplishmentHeartacheTortureAuthorWriterEnlightenedSatireStoryWritersUnhappinessCapabilityMasteryNonfictionAcceptableAphorismEntertainingAgonyDistressQuotationsJokeTormentEssaysHilariousEscapeUnbearableDiscomfortAuthorsUnderstandKnowExpertiseScholarshipComprehensionAphorismsSchoolingEscapismApprehensionCognitionKnowledgeableIlliterateDesolationEssaySkillUneducatedTolerableWretchednessManageableWell EducatedScholarlyAphoristAphoristsOverpoweringInsufferableUninformedEruditeUnendurableEruditionProficiencyLearnedNarrativesComprehendAccountEntertainGraspSustainableUnacceptableWell ReadInexperiencedCultivatedCulturedIntolerableWell InformedCognizanceUnschooledUnsophisticatedEndurableInsupportableUnworldlyMan Of LettersUnknowledgeableUnreadUntrainedVia DolorosaAdeptnessAdmissibleBe Acquainted WithBe Conversant WithBe Familiar WithBe Up To Speed OnBe Versed InBenightedBrookableExpertnessHave A Grasp OfHave Knowledge OfHave LearnedHave MasteredHave MemorizedKnowledgableMen Of LettersSufferableSupportableUnenlightenedUnlearnedUnletteredUnmanageableUntaughtUntutoredWoman Of LettersWomen Of Letters
Author:Mokokoma Mokhonoana
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“When it turns out that the greatest enemy of truth is not falsehood, but gibberish, it turns out that the greatest intellectual virtue is not deductive brilliance or factual erudition, but common sense. When it turns out that the greatest enemy of decency is not hatred, but arbitrariness, it turns out that the greatest moral virtue is not kindness or mercy, but perseverance. When it turns out that the greatest enemy of good taste is not vulgarity, but ostentation, it turns out that the greatest aesthetic virtue is not elegance or refinement, but moderation. And when it turns out that the greatest enemy of civilization is not barbarity, but infantilism, it turns out that the greatest cultural virtue is not sophistication, but integrity.”

VirtueIntegrityCivilizationPerseveranceCommon SenseSophisticationEruditionGibberishArbitrarinessInfantilism
Author:Jakub Bożydar Wiśniewski
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“The Scholars "Bald heads forgetful of their sins, Old, learned, respectable bald heads Edit and annotate the lines That young men, tossing on their beds, Rhymed out in love’s despair To flatter beauty’s ignorant ear. They’ll cough in the ink to the world’s end; Wear out the carpet with their shoes Earning respect; have no strange friend; If they have sinned nobody knows. Lord, what would they say Should their Catullus walk that way?”

WritingAgePoetryPerfectionCriticismCriticsFrustrationCreative ProcessInferiorityLove PoetryEruditionScholarsAnnotation
Book:The Wild Swans at Coole
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“Sr James George Frazer, a Scotsman by birth, is the author of the immense Golden Bough, a collection of anthropological studies. The author's methods of correlation have been as crude and unregulated as his industry and the cultivation of his erudition have been immense. The confusion of savage and primitive states of culture commenced by Tylor and his school has been carried to excess in the works of Sr J.G. Frazer. From the point of view of the social historian attempting to disentangle the story of man's coming and growth upon this planet he is one of the most calamatous phenomena in modern research: he has smashed in the ruin of pre-history with a coal hammer, collected every brick disclosed when the dust has settled on the debris, and then labelled the exhibits with the assiduous industry of a literary ant. His pleasing literary style in that labelling is in unorthodox English.”

EruditionSocial HistoryLiterary StylePre HistoryAnthropological MethodThe Golden BoughSir James Frazer
Book:Scottish Scene: or, The Intelligent Man's Guide to Albyn
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“I have respect for mother nature's methods of robustness (billions of years allow most of what is fragile to break); classical thought is more robust (in its respect for the unknown, the epistemic humility) than the modern post-Enlightenment naïve pseudoscientific autism. Thus my classical values make me advocate the triplet of erudition, elegance, and courage; against modernity's phoniness, nerdiness and philistinism”

YearsMotherValuesBreakModernHumilityEnlightenmentMethodBillionsPostsFragileAutismEleganceModernityMother NatureRobustEruditionTripletNerdiness
Author:Nassim Nicholas Taleb
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“Margaret Miles offers a stunning treatment of human experience, coaxing humans to leave dualisms behind and embrace our intelligent bodies. In a foundational text, she draws on the arts, philosophy and theology, and her experience as a hospice volunteer to explore concrete alternatives to privileging the rational mind. Her erudition, wisdom, and graceful writing are compelling proof of the intelligent body.”

WritingMindHumansArtPhilosophyBodyBehindsOffersDrawsIntelligentEmbraceProofMilesTheologyRationalAlternativesTreatmentConcreteCompellingVolunteerHuman ExperienceStunningDualismEruditionHospice
Author:Mary E. Hunt
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“You must overcome any shyness and have a conversation with the librarian, because he can offer you reliable advice that will save you much time. You must consider that the librarian (if not overworked or neurotic) is happy when he can demonstrate two things: the quality of his memory and erudition and the richness of his library, especially if it is small. The more isolated and disregarded the library, the more the librarian is consumed with sorrow for its underestimation. A person who asks for help makes the librarian happy.”

IfsPersonsTwoHelpingAsksMemoriesQualityAdviceSorrowOffersConversationOvercomingLibraryTwo ThingsIsolatedConsumedLibrarianRichnessNeuroticShynessDisregardedErudition
Author:Umberto Eco
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“All preceptors should have that kind of genius described by Tacitus, "equal to their business, but not above it;" a patient industry, with competent erudition; a mind depending more on its correctness than its originality, and on its memory rather than on its invention.”

ShouldMindKindMemoriesTeachingIndustryGeniusEqualShould HavePatientInventionOriginalityCompetentCorrectnessErudition
Book:Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
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“Critics have found in the narrative a veneer of erudition that cloaks nothing more than a James Bond-style romp, albeit a highly addictive one. His publisher has described it as 'a thriller for people who don't like thrillers'. One newspaper put it thus: 'It is terribly written, its characters are cardboard cutouts, the dialogue is excruciating in places and, a bit like a computer manual, everything is overstated and repeated - but it is impossible to put the bloody thing down.”

PeopleCharacterFoundBitsImpossibleWrittenStyleComputerCriticsNewspapersDialogueNarrativeBloodyPublishersThrillersManualsCloaksVeneerErudition
Author:Dan Brown
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“The Treatise of the Three Impostors is a book that enjoyed centuries of notorious nonexistence until (as Voltaire would say) it became necessary to invent it. Georges Minois writes with empathy, erudition, and a novelist's sense of buildup and timing, weaving in the parallel story of Europe's courageous freethinkers. In the face of today's social and even legal pressures against criticizing religion, it is good to see an honorable French tradition asserting itself.”

WritingBookStoriesTodayFacesThreeSocialCenturyEmpathyEuropeTraditionPressureEnjoyedNovelistsCourageousCriticizeTimingHonorableParallelsFreethinkerWeavingNotoriousErudition
Author:Joscelyn Godwin
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“No other book has been so chopped, knifed, sifted, scrutinized, and vilified. What book on philosophy or religion or psychology or belles lettres of classical or modern times has been subject to such a mass attack as the Bible? With such venom and skepticism? With such thoroughness and erudition? Upon every chapter, line and tenet?”

Has BeensBookPhilosophyLinesPsychologyModernSubjectsMassChaptersSkepticismModern TimesVenomEruditionThoroughness
Author:Bernard Ramm
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“Blackness is an ocean, a universe, a possibility that can never be exhausted. And so we have to constantly reaffirm the necessity of excavation, of archiving and curating, but also exploring, and understanding afresh and learning for the first time what it is that we need to know, and what the limits and boundaries are, and what the themes and preoccupations should be, and what the redemptive character of that erudition is. I find myself in the exciting position of doing all that, and at the same time having the obligation to explain to white people what the deal is.”

PeopleKnowsNeedsShouldFirstsCharacterUniverseUnderstandingWhiteDealsPossibilityPositionLimitsOceanFirst TimeExcitingBoundariesObligationThemeExploringExhaustedBlacknessPreoccupationErudition
Author:Michael Eric Dyson
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“A harmless hilarity and a buoyant cheerfulness are not infrequent concomitants of genius; and we are never more deceived than when we mistake gravity for greatness, solemnity for science, and pomposity for erudition.”

ScienceMistakeCreativityGreatnessGeniusInnovationEnjoymentGravityDeceivedCheerfulnessCreativity And InnovationSolemnityEruditionHilarityPomposity
Book:Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
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“No erudition, no purity of diction, no width of mental outlook, no flowers of eloquence, no grace of person can atone for lack of fire. Prayer ascends by fire. Flame gives prayer access as well as wings, acceptance as well as energy. There is no incense without fire; no prayer without flame.”

GivingWellsPersonsEnergyPrayerFireGraceAcceptanceFlowerWingsAccessChristian InspirationalFlamesPurityOutlookEloquenceIncenseMissions And PrayerDictionEruditionWidth
Book:The necessity of prayer
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“We rarely quote nowadays to appeal to authority... though we quote sometimes to display our sapience and erudition. Some authors we quote against. Some we quote not at all, offering them our scrupulous avoidance, and so make them part of our "white mythology." Other authors we constantly invoke, chanting their names in cerebral rituals of propitiation or ancestor worship.”

SometimesNamesWhiteAuthorityWorshipMythologyAppealsRitualAncestorDisplayOfferingQuotationsAvoidanceInvokeCerebralChantingEruditionPropitiationAncestor Worship
Author:Ihab Hassan
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“Bernard Williams has been a distinctive presence on the intellectual scene for more than three decades. . . . His writings do not offer the dubious exhilaration of grand philosophical theory, in which messy reality is tamed and caged, but the thrill of seeing pretension punctured by a kind of high-voltage common sense (backed up by impressive erudition). . . . There is no one in philosophy quite like him.”

WritingKindHas BeensPhilosophyRealityThreeCommonSeeingTheorySceneOffersIntellectualPhilosophicalDecadesCommon SenseThrillImpressiveMessyDistinctivePretensionDubiousCagedTamedExhilarationEruditionVoltage
Author:Colin McGinn
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“A man who knows the world will not only make the most of everything he does know, but of many things he does not know, and will gain more credit by his adroit mode of hiding his ignorance than the pedant by his awkward attempt to exhibit his erudition.”

KnowsMenWorldDoeKnowledgeIgnoranceGainsCreditHidingAwkwardExhibitsPedantsErudition
Book:Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
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“Nobody brings ancient history and archaeology to life like Adrienne Mayor. From the Russian steppes to China, and from Roman Egypt and Arabia to the Etruscans, she leads the reader on a breathtaking quest for the real ancient warrior women reflected in myths--their daring, archery, tattoos, fine horses, and independence from male control. The book's rich erudition, communicated in sparkling prose and beautiful illustrations, makes it a riveting read.”

BookRealBeautifulRichFineReaderHorseIndependenceMalesAncientChinaMythWarriorProseDaringQuestsTattooEgyptMayorsArabiaIllustrationSparklingArchaeologyBreathtakingArcheryAncient HistoryErudition
Author:Edith Hall
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“Exploring Ecclesiology is true to its subtitle, being both vibrantly evangelical and admirably ecumenical; it is commendable for its depth, breadth, and erudition. Harper and Metzger's sympathetic engagement with Catholic ecclesiology is challenging and reciprocal. I especially appreciate how the authors emphasize and explore the vital connection between ecclesiology and eschatology, something very beneficial to readers seeking to better appreciate how living the Faith in community today relates to the hope of entering fully into Trinitarian communion in the life to come.”

TodayCommunityChallengesReaderAppreciateConnectionsCatholicDepthSeekingRelateEngagementCommunionExploringEnteringBeneficialSympatheticEvangelicalBreadthReciprocalHarperEruditionCommendableEschatologySubtitles
Author:Carl E. Olson
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