Intellectual Constraints Quotes

Just as a man working with his tools should know its limitations, a man working with his cognitive apparatus must know its limitations.

The very might of the human intellect reveals its limits.

It is the duty of the human understanding to understand that there are things which it cannot understand, and what those things are

Everything has boundaries. the same holds true with thought. you shouldn't fear boundaries, but you also should not be afraid of destroying them. that's what is most important if you want to be free: respect for and exasperation with boundaries. what's really important in life is always the things that are secondary.

The university has become so stultified since the sixties. There is so much you can't do at the university. You can't say this, you can't do that, you can't think this, and so forth. In many ways, I'm free to range as widely as I do intellectually precisely because I'm not at a university. The tiresome Chicanos would be after me all the time. You know: "We saw your piece yesterday, and we didn't like what you said," or, "You didn't sound happy enough," or, "You didn't sound proud enough."

The man who does not know other languages, unless he is a man of genius, necessarily has deficiencies in his ideas.

One's range [of ideas] is limited by one's interests and imagination and by one's passion.

The world of learning is so broad, and the human soul is so limited in power!

sooner or later, if the activity of the mind is restricted anywhere it will cease to function even where it is allowed to be free.

It is impossible to meditate on time and the mystery of nature without an overwhelming emotion at the limitations of human intelligence.