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A scholar is like a book written in a dead language. It is not every one that can read in it.

The mind of the scholar, if he would leave it large and liberal, should come in contact with other minds.

Few are there that will leave the secure seclusion of the scholar's life, the peaceful walks of literature and learning, to stand out a target for the criticism of unkind and hostile minds.

The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, skepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin.

An intellectual is going to have doubts, for example, about a fundamentalist religious doctrine that admits no doubt, about an imposed political system that allows no doubt, about a perfect aesthetic that has no room for doubt.

Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible.

Writing anything as an expert is really poisonous to the writing process, because you lose the quality of discovery.