Amber Tamblyn Quotes

Every one of my opponents, every one of my critics, will tell you that I am a generalist spread far too thin in an age when this is not done anymore, when responsible knowledge is specialized knowledge.

Every man gets a narrower and narrower field of knowledge in which he must be an expert in order to compete with other people. The specialist knows more and more about less and less and finally knows everything about nothing.

I think that a lot of people in all walks of life have the impression, of course, that, 'I specialize in something. I can't - I don't have the time to read other things. I'll just go to pure entertainment when I'm relaxing, and then I'll come back to my pure specialty.' That produces - that attitude produces idiot savants, unfortunately.

Wherever learning breeds specialists, the sum of human culture is enhanced thereby. That is the illusion and consolation of specialists.

A specialist is a barbarian whose ignorance is not well-rounded.

We are all experts in our own little niches.

A specialist is a man who knows more and more about less and less.

It is better to be able neither to read nor write than to be able to do nothing else.

An expert is someone who knows a lot about the past.

One of the things that is wrong with America is that everybody who has done anything at all in his own field is expected to be an authority on every subject under the sun.

Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.

I know a lot about a few things - mostly useless things.

An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made, in a narrow field.

It may be true, that men, who are mere mathematicians, have certain specific shortcomings, but that is not the fault of mathematics, for it is equally true of every other exclusive occupation.

An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less.

Knowledge is death in my experience. The more I know about film, the harder it is to create freely.

As a physicist, I can state that none of the 18 physicists who signed the Statement works in this field; nor to my knowledge has ever published a paper on this subject.

You should have a fund of knowledge of something and out of that you make up you mind.

… we are being bogged down today as specialization extends. The investigator is staggered by the findings and conclusions of thousands of other workers—conclusions which he cannot find time to grasp, much less to remember, as they appear. Yet specialization becomes increasingly necessary for progress, and the effort to bridge between disciplines is correspondingly superficial.

In the age of the specialist, the generalsit gets short shrift.

Each person feels that he is an 'expert' in one or two fields and just the 'public' in all the others. But you know, probably, from experience that no one is really able to appreciate any display of ability in any field if he himself has not, to a certain degree, taken part in its problems and difficulties at some time.

I can only write about what I know, I'd be crap anywhere else.

If you're going to make comments on economy, study economy. If you're gonna make comments on world history, make sure you learn world history. If you're gonna save lives and be a doctor, you need to study medicine. Then, you will be able to make comments on economy, on medicine, and on world history.

A smattering of everything is worth little. It is a fallacy to suppose that an encyclopaedic knowledge is desirable. The mind is made strong, not through much learning, but by the thorough possession of something.

Every day you spend becoming an expert in a field, you become more useless in that field.