Sir William Hamilton, 9th Baronet Quotes

In life," as the great Pascal observes, "we always believe that we are seeking repose, while, in reality, all that we ever seek is agitation.

[I]n the very term Philosophy... the man who first declared that he was not a... possessor, but a... seeker of truth, at once enounced the true end of human speculation, and embodied it in a significant name.

The instructor... does not profess to teach philosophy, but to philosophise.

[I]nstruction is only instruction as it enables us to teach ourselves.

[T]he paramount end of liberal study is the development of the student’s mind, and... knowledge is principally useful as a mean of determining the faculties to that exercise, through which this development is accomplished... the main duty of a Professor to consist not simply in communicating information, but in doing this in such a manner... that the information he conveys may be the occasion of awakening his pupils to a vigorous and varied exertion of their faculties.

Be sober, and to doubt prepense,
These are the sinews of good sense.

Plato defines man "the hunter of truth," "for science is a chase, and in a chase the pursuit is always of greater value than the game."

The intellect," says Aquinas, "commences in operation, and in operation it ends...

[T]he sciences always studied with keenest interest are those in a state of progress and uncertainty: absolute certainty and absolute completion would be the paralysis of any study; and the last worst calamity that could befall man... would be that full and final possession of speculative truth, which he now vainly anticipates as the consummation of his intellectual happiness.

"Sordet cognita veritas" is a shrewd aphorism of Seneca. A truth, once known, falls into comparative insignificance.

The primary principle of education is the determination of the pupil to self-activity — the doing nothing for him which he is able to do for himself.

Analysis and synthesis, though commonly treated as two different methods, are, if properly understood, only the two necessary parts of the same method. Each is the relative and correlative of the other. Analysis, without a subsequent synthesis, is incomplete; it is a mean cut off from its end. Synthesis, without a previous analysis, is baseless; for synthesis receives from analysis the elements which it recomposes.

The past does not interest, the present does not satisfy, the future alone is the object which engages us.

However arid and uninviting the prospect of a History of Medicine may appear at a distance, it will be found gradually to improve, and become full of interest wonder and animation as we proceed. ...The History of Medicine is ...the history of the human species, uncontaminated by those civil discords and fearful atrocities, those crimes and disorders which blot the page of other histories, and stamp man, created in the image of his maker, with the visage of a fiend and the heart of a brute. The History of Medicine, on the contrary, is the history of peace and good will, of endless harmony, and unceasing philanthropy. Instead of recording the desolations of war, and the growth of immorality—the deadly effects of human passions, and the bloody triumphs of senseless ambition—her province is to note the diminution of mortal suffering; and the only triumphs which she records are those obtained over sickness, death, and Sorrow.

The one condition under which all powers, and consequently the intellectual faculties, are developed, is exercise.