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A man who does not know what has been thought by those who have gone before him is sure to set an undue value upon his own ideas—ideas which have perhaps been tried and found wanting. As accumulated learning stifles the mental powers, so original thinking has been known to bring about a puffy, unsubstantial mental condition.

— Mark Pattison Memoirs (1885)

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More quotes by Mark Pattison

In the Diary which begins 1845 there is a much larger infusion of secular matter. I find myself deep in the literary history of the eighteenth century, reading Gray's Correspondence, Prior's Life of Goldsmith, Hume's Life and Correspondence ...

Memoirs (1885)

I wanted not merely to get up my classics, but to penetrate to the secrets and mysteries which I vaguely understood to be somehow wrapt up in books, though they had not, as yet, been revealed to me. I was disconcerted to find that none of my new acquaintance had any share of this yearning curiosity.

Memoirs (1885)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Mark Pattison (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.