A Quote by Tobias Smollett

A mere index hunter, who held the eel of science by the tail.

Tobias Smollett

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Held Hunter Mere Science Tail

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Tobias Smollett
Scottish - Novelist
March 19, 1721 - September 17, 1771

A mere index hunter, who held the eel of science by the tail. Index-hunter is a term used mockingly, meaning one who acquires superficial knowledge merely by consulting indexes. The '[holding] the eel of science by the tail' allusion was used in 1728 by Alexander Pope (q.v.).

Tobias Smollett

Index-learning turns no student pale, Yet holds the eel of Science by the tail. Index-learning is a term used to mock pretenders who acquire superficial knowledge merely by consulting indexes.

Alexander Pope

How index-learning turns no student pale, Yet holds the eel of science by the tail!

Alexander Pope

POLITICIAN, n. An eel in the fundamental mud upon which the superstructure of organized society is reared. When he wriggles, he mistakes the agitation of his tail for the trembling of the edifice.

Ambrose Bierce

Science always goes abreast with the just elevation of the man, keeping step with religion and metaphysics; or, the state of science is an index of our self-knowledge.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The rank of a university is similar to an index number say like the NASDAQ index. I don't understand how you can take an institution like Harvard, Stanford, or Michigan, and represent it by an index number. The concept makes no sense.

Henry Rosovsky

As a quiet salute to Beavis and Butthead, I held up my index finger and thumb in an "L"-the international sign for loser.

Michael Moore

Science has done much for us; but it is a poor science that would hide from us the great deep sacred infinitude of Nescience, on which all science swims as a mere superficial film.

Thomas Carlyle

The mere man of pleasure is miserable in old age, and the mere drudge in business is but little better, whereas, natural philosophy, mathematical and mechanical science, are a continual source of tranquil pleasure, and in spite of the gloomy dogmas of priests and of superstition, the study of these things is the true theology; it teaches man to know and admire the Creator, for the principles of science are in the creation, and are unchangeable and of divine origin.

Thomas Paine

Ares always reemerges from the chaos. It will never go away. Athenian civilization defends itself from the forces of Ares with metis, or technology. Technology is built on science. Science is like the alchemists' uroburos, continually eating its own tail. The process of science doesn't work unless young scientists have the freedom to attack and tear down old dogmas, to engage in an ongoing Titanomachia. Science flourishes where art and free speech flourish.

Neal Stephenson

I like to do matrices. One option per line, different facets for each column. Salary, location, happiness index, failure index, and all that.

Marissa Mayer

My own motivation has come from the fact that all the indicators in the world, the hunger index or whatever index you say, shows a high prevalence of malnutrition.

M. S. Swaminathan

No barrier stands between the material world of science and the sensibilities of the hunter and the poet.

E. O. Wilson

[Science] must be amoral by its very nature: The minute it begins separating facts into the two categories of good ones and bad ones it ceases to be science and becomes a mere nuisance, like theology.

H. L. Mencken

In 10000 BC, all human beings were hunter-gatherers; by 1500 AD, 1 percent were hunter-gatherers. Less than .001 percent of people are hunter-gatherers today.

Robyn Davidson

Must love be ever treated with profaneness as a mere illusion? or with coarseness as a mere impulse? or with fear as a mere disease? or with shame as a mere weakness? or with levity as a mere accident? whereas it is a great mystery and a great necessity, lying at the foundation of human existence, morality, and happiness,--mysterious, universal, inevitable as death.

Harriet Martineau

A Quote by Tobias Smollett

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