Woody Norris Quotes

I would like to attribute my range of interests to being an independent intellectual, but although I'm independent, I'm not sure I qualify as an intellectual. Basically, I'm an old-fashioned amateur.

Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.

I'm a dull person.

I'm not your expert on Africa or animals or whatever. I'm not a travel writer or maker of documentaries. I was someone who doesn't know very much, trying to communicate.

I have a simple, simple brain.

I know a little bit about a great many things and not enough about any one to make a living in these times.

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.

A philosopher knows that in reality he knows very little. That is why he constantly strives to achieve true insight. Socrates was one of these rare people. He knew that he knew nothing about life and about the world. And now comes the important part: it troubled him that he knew so little.

I don't really study television or how things do or don't change. So I don't know anything about that. I'm just a stupid actor.

I’m not the smartest guy in the world, but I’m certainly not the dumbest. I mean, I’ve read books like "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" and "Love in the Time of Cholera", and I think I’ve understood them. They’re about girls, right? Just kidding. But I have to say my all-time favorite book is Johnny Cash’s autobiography "Cash" by Johnny Cash.

I don't think I'm extremely intelligent by any means.

My natural tendency is to complicate everything--and then to spray words and ideas onto everything afterwards. I've had to develop the habit of keeping things simple.

Past certain ages or certain wisdoms it is very difficult to look with wonder; it is best done when one is a child; after that, and if you are lucky, you will find a bridge of childhood and walk across it.

I'm in this wonderful position where I can do what interests me. And whatever comes along that interests me, I do. The rest of the time I bother scientists about communicating.

Nothing is more securely lodged than the ignorance of the experts.

A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands; How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he.

I’m the archetype of a disabled genius, or should I say a physically challenged genius, to be politically correct. At least I’m obviously physically challenged. Whether I’m a genius is more open to doubt.

For I am a bear of very little brain, and long words bother me.

By profession a biologist, [Thomas Henry Huxley] covered in fact the whole field of the exact sciences, and then bulged through its four fences. Absolutely nothing was uninteresting to him. His curiosity ranged from music to theology and from philosophy to history. He didn't simply know something about everything; he knew a great deal about everything.

The mathematicians know a great deal about very little and the physicists very little about a great deal.

There are chemists who spend their whole lives trying to find out what's in a lump of sugar. I want to know one thing. What is color?

You cannot do without one specialty. You must have some base-line to measure the work and attainments of others. For a general view of the subject, study the history of the sciences. Broad knowledge of all Nature has been the possession of no naturalist except Humboldt, and general relations constituted his specialty.

I know I am no better than anyone else in this world. I'm just an actor, that's nothing special. But I'm not into anything bad. Just blackjack.

I wondered why she craved this knowledge and found myself remembering that she was, after all, an anthropologist.

Few people know how to take a walk. The qualifications are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good speech, good silence and nothing too much.