Quote Wall

EphBlog Quote Wall

  • The ideal college is Mark Hopkins on one end of a log and a student on the other.— US President James Garfield ‘56
  • If you wish to be happy for an hour, get intoxicated. If you wish to be happy for three days, get married. If you wish to be happy for eight days, kill a pig and eat it. If you wish to be happy forever, beat Amherst. — Mens Lacrosse Coach Renzi Lamb
  • Kane’s odd blogging position, flopping like a landed fish between wide-eyed nostalgia for the purple mountains majesty and abstruse, barely coherent critiques of what he believes to be the failings of his alma mater. — S. Aidan Finley ‘04
  • Dave, you’re completely nuts to have spent so much time on this, but — as the kids say — you kick ass. — Professor Joe Cruz ‘90
  • We are to regard the mind, not as a piece of iron to be laid upon the anvil and hammered into any shape, nor as a block of marble in which we are to find the statue by removing the rubbish, or as a receptacle into which knowledge may be poured; but as a flame that is to be fed, as an active being that must be strengthened to think and to feel-and to dare, to do, and to suffer. — President Mark Hopkins ‘24
  • Wow, cool discussion. A thread like this is the reason I read Ephblog (aside from nifty photos and dirt on recent campus events). — Mike E
  • We don’t pay $40,000 a year to do sports, to drink alcohol, or to go hiking in the Berkshires. We pay for professors, for classes, and for some small level of enlightenment, and for us few nerdy kids who find a few professors who like this whole education thing, well, it works.. — Diana Davis ‘07
  • Her love is just another aspect of his presence in the world. — Professor Sam Crane [describing the relationship between his daughter and his profoundly disabled son, Aidan]
  • If the members of the football team averaged 100 SAT points above the general student body average, there would continue to be those who advocated elimination of inter-collegiate football. — Frank Uible ‘59
  • No duh. There’s an explicit quota on international students. Thanks for pointing that out, Captain Obvious. — Ronit Bhattacharyya ‘07
  • This is the Internet — everyone is in the room. — DeWitt Clinton ‘97
  • This post exemplifies I read Ephblog from time to time. — Anonymous [referring to Diana Davis's '07 EphBoat]
  • Good muckraking here, David. And one of the reasons that I still read your site, despite your ideological leanings being so different from mine, and the occasional overly sacchrine Eph-tripe. — Ravenastro
  • One of the little snobbish pleasures of a Williams degree is being able to use it to evaluate whether someone knows anything about higher education by their recognition of it or lack thereof. — H. Webb Collings ‘75
  • In some respects what we say may never matter, yet history has proven time and again that there are sometimes cases where one voice has made a difference. The most successful of these though were always the ones who were compassionate in their cause and careful with their words. — M. Esa Seeglum ‘06
  • Responsibilities of the CC leader(s) are far too great to be held by one person alone. — current eph
  • I think the value of identity studies should be actively questioned: I find it troubling that many students come to Williams only to major in themselves, as it were. In many of these departments there’s a emphasis on ideology and a paucity of facts — it is not unreasonable to say the only identity tradition that is critically studied is the western one. — S. Aidan Finley ‘04
  • Self-knowledge never comes easily. And it is in the moments of greatest adversity that I think we learn the most about ourselves. There is something about 25 yards of untouched water and the simple click-click of the second hand on the clock that welcomes all kinds of challenges. I think Williams swimming is epic. Anything epic, to me, is inspiring. I think what we do is inspiring — Nate Krissoff ‘03 [Krissoff served as an officer in the United States Marine Corps and was killed in action in Iraq on December 9, 2006.]
  • Of course, this isn’t a college. It’s a Nike Camp with enrichment classes. — Professor Cheryl Shanks
  • Williams without brainy jocks could be a great school, but it would not be Williams, and while there are many great schools, there is only one Williams College. — PTC
  • It is the object of the College to make men. — President Mark Hopkins ‘24
  • EphBlog is a tremendous resource. I appreciate that it is independent of the college, and yet responsible. — Bill Densmore
  • L.L. Bean yelling at J. Crew — Williams official [describing the razzing between Williams and Amherst basketball fans]
  • Wow, you guys must have a lot of time on your hands.— Professor Jon Bakija
  • It would be no small advantage if every college were thus located at the base of a mountain, as good at least as one well-endowed professorship. It were as well to be educated in the shadow of a mountain as in more classical shades. Some will remember, no doubt, not only that they went to the college, but that they went to the mountain. Every visit to its summit would, as it were, generalize the particular information gained below, and subject it to more catholic tests. — Henry David Thoreau
  • So, c’mon, Kane. Let’s step it up. Let’s see you do something other than complain, toady, pontificate, toady, complain. It gets old, and all the fancy formatting in the world doesn’t alieviate the thoughtless, thread-bare, nature of your commentary. — S. Aidan Finley ‘04