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Whatever study tends neither directly nor indirectly to make us better men and citizens is at best but a specious and ingenious sort of idleness, and the knowledge we acquire by it only a creditable kind of ignorance, nothing more.

Whatever study tends neither directly nor indirectly to make us better men and citizens is at best but a specious and ingenious sort of idleness, and the knowledge we acquire by it only a creditable kind of ignorance, nothing more.

Approximate author period: c. 1714 AD · early modern

Meaning not yet available

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Attribution & collection notes
Author or tradition
Viscount Bolingbroke
Attribution: attributed
Country attributed
Not established
A country attribution does not establish the earliest origin.
Historical period
Approximate author period: c. 1714 AD · early modern
author lifetime midpoint (1678–1751)
An author lifetime, approximate period or collection date is not necessarily the date when these words were first written or spoken.
Recorded source
Pearls of Thought (1881) (1881 AD)

Page 249 · printed citation: Bolingbroke · subject: Study

A collection's publication date can be later than the words it records.