As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life—so I became a scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you can meet girls.

—Matt Cartmill

humor meaning knowledge science facts

About Matt Cartmill

Matthew Cartmill is an American anthropologist and professor of anthropology in the College of Arts and Sciences at Boston University, where he formerly served as Chair of Anthropology.

More quotations tagged with “facts”

The trouble with facts is that there are so many of them.

—Samuel McChord Crothers

knowledge facts

The aim of education is the knowledge, not of facts, but of values.

—William Inge

education knowledge facts values

Never face facts; if you do, you'll never get up in the morning.

—Marlo Thomas

Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, the only fact we have.

—James Baldwin

war reality beauty religion facts death blood

Be joyful / though you have considered all the facts.

—Wendell Berry

History

21 Jul 2013 Added
26 Oct 2026 Wording changed

Previous wording

As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life — so I became a scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you can meet girls.