Parker Palmer Quotes

As a journalist I'm comfortable doing library research, and I did a lot! I had a fellowship at Radcliff for a year which gave me access to the Harvard system.

I really wanted to do research. That has never changed.

They seemed to forget that the increase of known truths stimulates the investigation, establishment and growth of the arts; not their dimination or destruction.

I have no knowledge of anything.

I am a story-teller, and I look to academic research... for ways of augmenting story-telling.

We foresee no limit to scientific advancement in the future, and in scientific truth there is nothing dead; science is always a living and growing body of knowledge; but art on the contrary has many times run its course to an end, and exhausted its vital power.

Most scientific problems are defined by the question of whether a graduate student can study it for his thesis.

If a more general prosperity permits a greater number of individuals to pursue studies, since at present, in the most enlightened countries, hardly a fiftieth part of those men to whom nature has given talent receive the education necessary to make use of their talents; and that, therefore, the number of men destined to push back the frontiers of the sciences by their discoveries will grow in the same proportion [as universal education increases].

As history unfolds, as cultures evolve, of course the intelligences which they value change.

Research professors don't watch a whole lot of TV.

To have real issues to delve into, research-wise, always makes it a lot more satisfying to me. I can pull from a lot of resources and put them into my work and just have as much information as possible.

University research is crucial to our future as a nation.

We should be cautious about embracing data before it is published in the academic press, and must always avoid treating correlation as causation.

A scholar can hardly be better employed than in destroying a fear.

I have always thought that these two ways of talking, one is the fantastic, the fable, the fairy tale, and the other being history, the scholarly study of what happened, I think they're both amazing ways to understand human nature.

The best way of increasing the [average] intelligence of scientists would be to reduce their number.

It is often claimed that knowledge multiplies so rapidly that nobody can follow it. I believe this is incorrect. At least in science it is not true. The main purpose of science is simplicity and as we understand more things, everything is becoming simpler. This, of course, goes contrary to what everyone accepts.

I am indebted to my mother for the efflorescence of my knowledge.

Why should there be the method of science? There is not just one way to build a house, or even to grow tomatoes. We should not expect something as motley as the growth of knowledge to be strapped to one methodology.

Scholars do one of two things when they discover information that doesn't fit what they already know. Either they sweep it aside so it doesn't bring their cherished theories into question or they focus on it with laserlike intensity and try to get to the bottom of the mystery.

Each source that I read, I would look through the bibliography and the footnotes, and use that as a map for the next thing I would read.

Knowledge grows exponentially. The more we know, the greater our ability to learn, and the faster we expand our knowledge base.

As areas of knowledge grow, so too do the perimeters of ignorance.

I jealously guard my research time and I love fully immersing myself in those dusty old books and papers. It's one of the most enjoyable parts of my job.

There are those who spend their lives studying it and those who spend their lives doing it.