V > V's Quotes

“No matter where we begin, if we pursue knowledge diligently and honestly, our quest will inevitably lead us from the things of the earth to the things of heaven.”
― Hugh Nibley

“Why should we labor this unpleasant point? Because the Book of Mormon labors it, for our special benefit. Wealth is a jealous master who will not be served halfheartedly and will suffer no rival--not even God: "Ye cannot serve God and Mammon." (Matthew 6:24) In return for unquestioning obedience wealth promises security, power, position, and honors, in fact anything in this world. Above all, the Nephites like the Romans saw in it a mark of superiority and would do anything to get hold of it, for to them "money answereth all things." (Ecclesiastes 10:19) "Ye do always remember your riches," cried Samuel the Lamanite, ". . .unto great swelling, envyings, strifes, malice, persecutions, and murders, and all manner of iniquities." (Helaman 13:22) Along with this, of course, everyone dresses in the height of fashion, the main point being always that the proper clothes are expensive--the expression "costly apparel" occurs 14 times in the Book of Mormon. The more important wealth is, the less important it is how one gets it.”
― Hugh Nibley, Since Cumorah

“Don't be like anybody else. Be different. Then you can make a
contribution. Otherwise, you just echo something; you're just a reflection.”
― Hugh Nibley

“Man's dominion is a call to service, not a license to to exterminate.”
― Hugh Nibley

“True knowledge never shuts the door on more knowledge, but zeal often does.”
― Hugh Nibley, Of all things!: A Nibley quote book

“Doctors and trainers often see perfectly developed bodies, but nobody can even begin to imagine what a perfect *mind* would be like; that is where the whole range of progress and growth must take place.”
― Hugh Nibley, Of all things!: A Nibley quote book

“Things that appear unlikely, impossible, or paradoxical from one point of view often make perfectly good sense from another.”
― Hugh Nibley, Of all things!: A Nibley quote book

“All scholarship, like all science, is an ongoing, open-ended discussion in which all conclusions are tentative forever, the principal value and charm of the game being the discovery of the totally unexpected.”
― Hugh Nibley, Of all things!: A Nibley quote book

“Knowledge can be heady stuff, but it easily leads to an excess of zeal! -- to illusions of grandeur and a desire to impress others and achieve eminence . . . Our search for knowledge should be ceaseless, which means that it is open-ended, never resting on laurels, degrees, or past achievements.”
― Hugh Nibley, Of all things!: A Nibley quote book

“The gas-law of learning: . . . any amount of information no matter how small will fill any intellectual void no matter how large.”
― Hugh Nibley, Of all things!: A Nibley quote book

“In the business of scholarship, evidence is far more flexible than opinion. The prevailing view of the past is controlled not by evidence but by opinion.”
― Hugh Nibley, Of all things!: A Nibley quote book

“Being self-taught is no disgrace; but being self-certified is another matter.”
― Hugh Nibley, Of all things!: A Nibley quote book

“The very helplessness of the public which makes it necessary for them to consult the experts also makes it impossible for them to judge how expert they are.”
― Hugh Nibley, Of all things!: A Nibley quote book

“As knowledge increases, the verdict of yesterday must be reversed today, and in the long run the most positive authority is the least to be trusted.”
― Hugh Nibley, Of all things!: A Nibley quote book

“Blindness to larger contexts is a constitutional defect of human thinking imposed by the painful necessity of being able to concentrate on only one thing at a time. We forget as we virtuously concentrate on that one thing that hundreds of other things are going on at the same time and on every side of us, things that are just as important as the object of our study and that are all interconnected in ways that we cannot even guess. Sad to say, our picture of the world to the degree to which it has that neatness, precision, and finality so coveted by scholarship is a false one.

I once studied with a famous professor who declared that he deliberately avoided the study of any literature east of Greece lest the new vision destroy the architectonic perfection of his own celebrated construction of the Greek mind. His picture of that mind was immensely impressive but, I strongly suspect, completely misleading.”
― Hugh Nibley, Of all things!: A Nibley quote book