We feel strongly that the spirit characteristic of America at its noblest, above all the pursuit of higher learning, cannot admit of any conditions as to personnel other than those designed to promote the objects for which this institution is established, and particularly with no regard whatever to accidents of race, creed, or sex.
Abraham Flexner
Abraham Flexner
You have had your
You have had your last bad meal. But, you have also heard your last honest compliment, and you have lost your last true friend.
Abraham Flexner
We must not overlook
We must not overlook the role that extremists play. They are the gadflies that keep society from being too complacent or self-satisfied; they are, if sound, the spearhead of progress. If they are fundamentally wrong, free discussion will in time put an end to them.
Abraham Flexner
The new naval treaty
The new naval treaty permits the United States to spend a billion dollars on warships-a sum greater than has been accumulated by all our endowed institutions of learning in their entire history. Unintelligence could go no further! … In Great Britain, the situation is similar. … Until the figures are reversed, … nations deceive themselves as to what they care about most.
Abraham Flexner
At no period of
At no period of [Michael Faraday’s] unmatched career was he interested in utility. He was absorbed in disentangling the riddles of the universe, at first chemical riddles, in later periods, physical riddles. As far as he cared, the question of utility was never raised. Any suspicion of utility would have restricted his restless curiosity. In the end, utility resulted, but it was never a criterion to which his ceaseless experimentation could be subjected.
Abraham Flexner
We must not overlook
We must not overlook the role that extremists play. They are the gadflies that keep society from being too complacent.
Abraham Flexner
The world in which
The world in which we live is the only world about which our senses can testify.
Abraham Flexner
Mathematicians, like cows in
Mathematicians, like cows in the dark, all look alike to me.
Abraham Flexner
There are men who
There are men who teach best by not teaching at all.
Abraham Flexner
The student is to
The student is to collect and evaluate facts. The facts are locked up in the patient.
Abraham Flexner