V

“The very helplessness of the public which makes it necessary for them to consult the experts also makes it impossible for them to judge how expert they are.”
― Hugh Nibley, Of all things!: A Nibley quote book

“Being self-taught is no disgrace; but being self-certified is another matter.”
― Hugh Nibley, Of all things!: A Nibley quote book

“As knowledge increases, the verdict of yesterday must be reversed today, and in the long run the most positive authority is the least to be trusted.”
― Hugh Nibley, Of all things!: A Nibley quote book

“Blindness to larger contexts is a constitutional defect of human thinking imposed by the painful necessity of being able to concentrate on only one thing at a time. We forget as we virtuously concentrate on that one thing that hundreds of other things are going on at the same time and on every side of us, things that are just as important as the object of our study and that are all interconnected in ways that we cannot even guess. Sad to say, our picture of the world to the degree to which it has that neatness, precision, and finality so coveted by scholarship is a false one.

I once studied with a famous professor who declared that he deliberately avoided the study of any literature east of Greece lest the new vision destroy the architectonic perfection of his own celebrated construction of the Greek mind. His picture of that mind was immensely impressive but, I strongly suspect, completely misleading.”
― Hugh Nibley, Of all things!: A Nibley quote book