Lebenskünstler

“This kind of degenerate learning did chiefly reign amongst the Schoolmen: who having sharp and strong wits, and abundance of leisure, and small variety of reading, but their wits being shut up in the cells of a few authors…as their persons were shut up in the cells of monasteries and colleges…did out of no great quantity of matter and infinite agitation of wit spin out unto those laborious webs of learning which are extant in their books…as the spider worketh his web, then it is endless, and brings forth indeed cobwebs of learning, admirable for the fineness of thread and work, but of no substance or profit. ” – Francis Bacon on book learning