David Levering Lewis Quotes

I don't need to be validated by academia, because that presupposes that academia is a pure endeavor and not guided by market forces, which is not the case.

There is an intellectual snobbery that, regrettably, many academics suffer from. They are proud their paper is only read by a small group of people - makes it very exclusive. Let's get rid of that. If it's truly important, people should be excited about it.

Because I've never had any higher education of any sort, I've never held in awe those who have had it or have a sense of superiority over those who don't.

I'm not one of those professors whose office is encased floor-to-ceiling with books. By the way, I think academics do this to intimidate their visitors.

If God had meant Harvard professors to appear in People magazine, She wouldn't have invented The New York Review of Books.

Tenured professors are more prone than the rest of us to think that the university is the universe.

I'm really fortunate to be at Stanford. I go home every 10 weeks, but Stanford apart from being just a wonderful university is one of the places that are part of a great conversation.

Not to beat a dead horse (a phrase that the index says “normalizes violence against animals”), but you used to have to get a graduate degree in the humanities to write something that stupid.

I once thought that there was some chance that a Harvard professor would know something about politics.

American Philosophical Society

I had been a college teacher. I had taught Greek mythology.

I love science and that time in history when science and the humanities were the same thing.

Maryland is one of the greatest schools that we have in this country.

I've had little success in intellectual circles. I'm not talked about in the 'New York Review of Books,' and I was never part of the Stravinsky 'inner circle.'

Social networks matter greatly, and our class calibrations are often around what college one attended, leading to gruesome institutional divisions between those who attend, say, community colleges and those who attend top-tier universities.

Philosophy is altogether less pure now. It's been impurified by science and social science and history.

If you are giving a graduate course you don't try to impress the students with oratory, you try to challenge them, get them to question you.

It doesn't matter what college you go to.

'The Anthill' is the podcast wing of The Conversation, the site that presents news and views derived from the academic and research community.

I went to college and majored in political science.

The greatest sin of the academic left is that it has become fundamentally aristocratic, writing in bizarre jargon that makes cliches seem abstruse. If you can't explain your ideal to a fairly intelligent 12-year-old, it's probably your own fault.

I want to go to colleges and give seminars. I want to sit down with kids in classrooms and have them challenge me.

We believe that Liberty will redefine what is considered an academically prestigious university in the future.

If you are a natural scientist, a publication the journal Science carries enormous prestige.

A university is supposed to be a place where all ideas are discussed.