Wentworth Dillon Quotes

Thinking is the hardest work we can do, and among the most important

A lot of writing is thinking.

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers. It may not be difficult to store up in the mind a vast quantity of facts within a comparatively short time, but the ability to form judgments requires the severe discipline of hard work and the tempering heat of experience and maturity.

I have an I.Q. of 100 plus a little bit. I have to work real hard to get things when I read.

Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it.

Know, thou, that the lines that live are turned out of a furrowed brow.

You can't do without philosophy, since everything has its hidden meaning which we must know.

Coming up with ideas is really hard - they don't spontaneously pop into my head while I'm cutting vegetables.

All wish to possess knowledge, but few, comparatively speaking, are willing to pay the price.

Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.

Writing is the hardest physical work there is.

Experience is one thing you can't get for nothing.

All the problems of the world could be settled easily if men were only willing to think. The trouble is that men very often resort to all sorts of devices in order not to think, because thinking is such hard work.

We cannot solve a problem until we understand the full extent of the problem.

The best thing you can do to an audience is to make them work.

But understanding will always require some effort. You probably wouldn't admire a friend who was good at everything if it cost her no effort.

You must read, you must persevere, you must sit up nights, you must inquire, and exert the utmost power of your mind. If one way does not lead to the desired meaning, take another; if obstacles arise, then still another; until, if your strength holds out, you will find that clear which at first looked dark.

Anthologies are mischievous things. Some years ago there was a rage for chemically predigested food, which was only suppressed when doctors pointed out that since human beings had been given teeth and digestive organs they had to be used or they degenerated very rapidly. Anthologies are predigested food for the brain.

I have always found that the man whose second thoughts are good is worth watching.

Socrates himself said, 'One thing only I know, and this is that I know nothing.' Remember this statement, because it is an admission that is rare, even among philosophers. Moreover, it can be so dangerous to say in public that it can cost you your life. The most subversive people are those who ask questions. Giving answers is not nearly as threatening. Any one question can be more explosive than a thousand answers.

Reading enables us to see with the keenest eyes, to hear with the finest ears, and listen to the sweetest voices of all time.

Learning, undigested by thought, is labor lost.

Examine other points of view as if they were your own.

The progress of science requires the growth of understanding in both directions, downward from the whole to the parts and upward from the parts to the whole. A reductionist philosophy, arbitrarily proclaiming that the growth of understanding must go only in one direction, makes no scientific sense. Indeed, dogmatic philosophical beliefs of any kind have no place in science.

My goal has not ever been to change minds, my goal is to open minds.