Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
Unamuno divides intellectuals into those who enjoy ideas superficially and those who obsess over details.
In plain terms
Intellectuals fall into lovers of ideas or lovers of rigid rules.
What can you take from it?
Balance curiosity with depth in intellectual pursuits.

Where it applies

  • academic settings
  • artistic circles
  • professional development

Putting it to work

  • avoid superficiality
  • avoid rigidity

Questions to consider

  • What type of learner are you?
  • How do we value different kinds of knowledge?

Another view

Some fields require deep technical knowledge over broad appreciation.

More from Miguel de Unamuno

  1. To fall into a habit is to begin to cease to be.

    Permalink to quote #20
  2. Warmth, warmth, more warmth! for we are dying of cold and not of darkness. It is not the night that kills, but the frost.

    Permalink to quote #22
  3. Martyrs create faith, faith does not create martyrs.

    Permalink to quote #19

Related quotes

  1. The principle itself of dogmatic religion, dogmatic morality, dogmatic philosophy, is what requires to be rooted out; not any particular manifestation of that …

    John Stuart MillJohn Stuart Mill quote #1
  2. An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made in a very narrow field.

    Niels BohrNiels Bohr quote #12
  3. What's an expert? I read somewhere, that the more a man knows, the more he knows, he doesn't know. So I suppose one definition of an expert would be someone wh…

    Malcolm ForbesMalcolm Forbes quote #44