"

Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.

Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.

Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent than in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.

Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.

"

"The finished piece on its own, however, frequently acts as a seductive screen that distracts us from this higher level of investigation. The allure of the veneer hides many of the choices (good and bad) that were a part of the construction; the seams are sanded out and all the lines made smooth. We are tempted by the quality of the work to ask how to reproduce its beauty. And how can you blame us? Beauty is palpable, while intentions and objectives are largely invisible."

"The scientists describe thoughts of God as providing the mind with “important psychological nutrients” that “refuel” our inner resources…"

"It is a dance of switching contexts, a pitter-patter pacing across the studio floor that produces a tight feedback loop between mark-making and mark-assessing. The artist, when near, is concerned with production; when far, he enters a mode of criticism where he judges the degree of benefit (or detriment) the previous choice has had on the full arrangement."

"Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They are the destination, and the journey. They are home."

"The more digital humanities associates itself with social media the better off it will be. Not because social media is the only way to do digital scholarship, but because I think social media is the only way to do scholarship period. Yes it is true that there are hosts of scholars having scholarly discussions who are not on Twitter, but you know what, they better be, or they risk being made irrelevant. No this doesn’t mean that every scholar has to have a Twitter account, but it probably wouldn’t hurt, but it does mean that every scholar better be having their discussions in public on the web in these digital spaces for all to participate in.
…
Seriously, don’t tell me your project on using computers to “tag up Milton” is the new bold cutting edge future of humanities, or if it is the future of the humanities it is a future in which the humanities becomes increasingly irrelevant and faculty continue to complain at boorish parties how society marginalizes them, all the while reveling in said marginalization, wearing it as a badge of honor which purportedly proves their superiority on all matters cultural."

"…because notions concerning the sanctity of language are intimately bound up with ideas of social order, typographic forms that deviate from a prescriptive discourse often incite suspicion on the part of those who wish to keep the boundaries of standardization intact."

"What ends up happening in the world, on a very, very large level, has a lot to do with what people believe will happen. Because these things are self-fulfilling — when enough people start to believe in a certain future outcome, their subconscious ends up acting on their behaviors, and that outcome ends up kind of happening. And so I think it’s so important to put forth beautiful, and also believable, visions of how things can be in the future, because then many people will believe in these things, and then those things will begin to come true."