Top 6 Quotes & Sayings by Leon Botstein

Schooling, by definition, must be conservative. It is naturally dependent on an older generation’s level of knowledge and sense of values.

No scientist, engineer, writer, psychologist, artist, or physician - and certainly no scholar, and therefore no serious university faculty member - pursues his or her vocation by getting right answers from a set of prescribed alternatives that trivialize complexity and ambiguity.

If Beethoven were sent to nursery school today, they would medicate him, and he would be a postal clerk.

I know nothing about this subject, but I do have prejudices, which I am more than happy to share with you.

At best, most college presidents are running something that is somewhere between a faltering corporation and a hotel.

Learning, like love, death and eating, are fundamental human activities. It's at the core of human existence and its character has a resilience of continuity that is part of what makes up human nature. That is not fundamentally going to change.