“To express or enact an idea is the only way of making it count; but its embodiment may mutilate it, if the material is not propitious….”
“To grow by mastery of what you are not, and do not wish to be, is to grow in dignity. It is to be wise and prepared. It is to survey a universe without ceasing to be a mind.”
“Imagination is not to be divorced from the facts: it is a way of illuminating the facts. …Imagination is a contagious disease. It cannot be measured by the yard, or weighed by pound, and then delivered to the students by members of the faculty. It can only be communicated by a faculty whose members themselves wearing their learning with imagination. …The combination of imagination and learning normally requires some leisure, freedom from restraint, freedom from harassing worry, some variety of experiences, and the stimulation of other minds diverse in opinion and diverse in equipment. Also there is required the excitement of curiosity, and the self-confidence derived from pride in the achievements of the surrounding society in procuring the advance of knowledge. Imagination cannot be conquered once and for all, and then kept indefinitely in an icebox to be produced periodically in stated quantities. The learned and imaginative life is a way of living, and is not an article of commerce.”
“It is the function of the scholar to evoke into life wisdom and beauty which, apart from his magic, would remain lost in the past.”
“A museum is an answer to a fundamental question: what does it mean to be a human being?”
