Any suspicion of utility would have restricted his restless curiosity. In the end, utility resulted, but it was never a criterion to which his ceaseless experimentation could be subjected.
ABRAHAM FLEXNERInstitutions of learning should be devoted to the cultivation of curiosity, and the less they are deflected by the consideration of immediacy of application
More Abraham Flexner Quotes
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Which may indeed be said to have become the ruling passion of intellectual life in modern times.
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Curiosity, which may or may not eventuate in something useful, is probably the most outstanding characteristic of modern thinking .
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There are men who teach best by not teaching at all.
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The new naval treaty permits the United States to spend a billion dollars on warships-a sum greater than has been accumulated by all our endowed institutions of learning in their entire history.
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Mathematicians, like cows in the dark, all look alike to me.
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As to personnel other than those designed to promote the objects for which this institution is established, and particularly with no regard whatever to accidents of race, creed, or sex
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A patient had a 50-50 chance of benefiting from visiting a physician as of 1910. Medicine was more like voodoo than science until the 20th Century.
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As far as he cared, the question of utility was never raised.
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He was absorbed in disentangling the riddles of the universe, at first chemical riddles, in later periods, physical riddles.
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You have had your last bad meal. But, you have also heard your last honest compliment, and you have lost your last true friend.
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We must not overlook the role that extremists play. They are the gadflies that keep society from being too complacent or self-satisfied; they are, if sound
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The student is to collect and evaluate facts. The facts are locked up in the patient.
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Medical education is not just a program for building knowledge and skills in its recipients… it is also an experience which creates attitudes and expectations.
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We must not overlook the role that extremists play. They are the gadflies that keep society from being too complacent.
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At no period of [Michael Faraday’s] unmatched career was he interested in utility.
ABRAHAM FLEXNER






