It is only after you have come to know the surface of things ... that you can venture to seek what is underneath. But the surface of things is inexhaustible.
The broader the topic, the easier it is, not only to fill a book, but to set the bar pretty high for really great stuff.
In all living there is a certain narrowness of application which leads to breadth and power. We have to concent on a thing in order to master it. Then we must be broad enough not to be narrowed by our specialties.
A smattering of everything is worth little. It is a fallacy to suppose that an encyclopaedic knowledge is desirable. The mind is made strong, not through much learning, but by the thorough possession of something.
I'm very simple. I have to be. I'm not very smart. I start broad, then go deep where I'm interested.
It's a mistake to get too narrow too fast. Kids today, many of them will live past 100, and you cant predict what you might work on. The things you're passionate about and interested in, get experience with them by going deep on projects. I would encourage science projects, plays. Pursue science, math, writing, history - the 21st century demands a lot of cross-disciplinary thinking.
The more I spend at one position, the more I can dive into those details.
What is important is not the quantity of your knowledge but its quality. You can know many things without knowing the most important.
Philosophers, as things now stand, are all too fond of offering criticism from on high instead of studying and understanding things from within.
Do not talk a little on many subjects, but much on a few.
I think it's very important to keep being frightened - if you're not frightening yourself, you should take a break. You need to keep experimenting. You also need to take time - that's how you do good stuff - layering and depth of knowledge.
I thought I knew a lot about music. Then you start digging and the deeper you go, the more there is.
Who reads Incessantly, and to his reading brings not A spirit and judgment equal or superior, (And what he brings what need he elsewhere seek?) Uncertain and unsettled still remains, Deep versed in books and shallow in himself, Crude or intoxicate, collecting toys And trifles for choice matters, worth a sponge, As children gathering pebbles on the shore.
I was taught that if you're going to study something, you must understand it deeply and be familiar with primary sources. But if you write a history of the whole world, you can't do this. That's the trade-off.
Furman astounded me with his chess depth, a depth which he revealed easily and naturally, as if all he were doing was establishing well-known truths.
Nothing disturbs me more than superficiality and mere sloganizing on matters of public policy, and the suspicion that what the speaker is saying represents the full extent of his knowledge on the subject.
The mathematicians know a great deal about very little and the physicists very little about a great deal.
...neither is it possible to discover the more remote and deeper parts of any science, if you stand but upon the level of the same science, and ascend not to a higher science.
He generally speaks about facts, issues, and if he's got a fault in speaking, it's probably that he knows so much about what he's talking about, sometimes he talks over people's heads.
Referring to U.S. Senator, Lloyd Bentsen:
The very quality of books to read and facts to master with which the twentieth-century man is confronted encourages him to think broadly and superficially about much, but hinders him from thinking deeply and thoroughly about anything.
When I'm working on historical books, I'm much more organized. I usually read about 100 books to get the depth of knowledge I need.
What signifies knowing the Names, if you know not the Natures of things.
I was tired of seeing the Graces always depicted as beautiful young things. I think wisdom comes with age and life and pain. And knowing what matters.
It is well to read everything of something, and something of everything.
Being one of my sources is exhausting. It's not one interview and you're done. I keep going back until I feel like I understand everything.
