People often become scholars for the same reason they become soldiers: simply because they are unfit for any other station. Their right hand has to earn them a livelihood; one might say they lie down like bears in winter and seek sustenance from their paws. – G. C. (Georg Christoph) Lichtenberg

The success of great scholars and thinkers is commonly a courtier-like success, not kingly, not manly. – Henry David Thoreau