"All things have a way of adding up together, so that one will become more proficient in any proposed branch of learning to the extent that he has mastered neighboring and related departments of knowledge." (John of Salisbury, "Metalogicon", 1159)
"In our acquisition of [scientific] knowledge, investigation is the first step, and comes before comprehension, analysis, and retention. Innate ability, although it proceeds from nature, is fostered by study and exercise. What is difficult when we first try it, becomes easier after assiduous practice, and once the rules for doing it are mastered, very easy, unless languor creeps in, through lapse of use or carelessness, and impedes our efficiency. This, in short, is how all the arts have originated: Nature, the first fundamental, begets the habit and practice of study, which proceeds to provide an art, and the latter, in turn, finally furnishes the faculty whereof we speak. Natural ability is accordingly effective. So, too, is exercise. And memory likewise, is effective, when employed by the two aforesaid. With the help of the foregoing, reason waxes strong, and produces the arts, which are proportionate to [man’s] natural talents." (John of Salisbury, "Metalogicon", 1159)
"The method of demonstration is therefore generally feeble and ineffective with regard to facts of nature (I refer to corporeal and changeable things). But it quickly recovers its strength when applied to the field of mathematics. For whatever it concludes in regard to such things as numbers, proportions and figures is indubitably true, and cannot be otherwise. One who wishes to become a master of the science of demonstration should first obtain a good grasp of probabilities. Whereas the principles of demonstrative logic are necessary; those of dialectic are probable." (John of Salisbury, "Metalogicon", 1159)
"The truth of voice perishes with the sound; truth latent in the mind is hidden wisdom and invisible treasure; but the truth which illuminates books desires to manifest itself to every disciplinable sense. Let us consider how great a commodity of doctrine exists in books, - how easily, how secretly, how safely, they expose the nakedness of human ignorance without putting it to shame. These are the masters that instruct us without rods and ferules, without hard words and anger, without clothes or money. If you approach them, they are not asleep; if, investigating, you interrogate them, they conceal nothing; if you mistake them, they never grumble; if you are ignorant, they cannot laugh at you." (Richard de Burry, "Philobiblon", 1344)
"Parsimony is enough to make the master of the golden mines as poor as he that has nothing; for a man may be brought to a morsel of bread by parsimony as well as profusion." (Henry Home [Lord Kames] ," Introduction to the Art of Thinking", 1761)
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