Paul Brunton Philosophic Foundation homepage > Notebooks of Paul Brunton



I have read far more widely than my critics suppose but by temperament I dislike to make a parade of learning. Yet, my esteem for broad scholarship is qualified by my contempt for narrow pedantry. This is why I do not care to fit my quotations to page-number references, why footnotes hardly ever appear in my books, and why I am often content to give an author's name without his book's title. The academic atmosphere is too dry for me to work in, too blind to the spirit and insistent on the letter for me to respect much. I feel that the faculty of vision which can see through and beyond the meaning of a hundred facts is immensely more important than the blind collection of those facts.

-- Notebooks Category 12: Reflections > Chapter 3 : Encounter With Destiny > # 92