The Ivory Tower Quotes

#1. There should be no grand, centralized choice made in the ivory tower. The minor cost-efficient advantage of the whole staff being trained in one method is far outweighed by the problems created - and the real cost, in ROI terms - by using the wrong process for the job.

David J. Anderson

#2. We look down on our scientists if they engage in outside consultation. We implicitly promote the ivory tower.

Vikram Sarabhai

#3. The ivory tower of the artist may be the only stronghold left for human values, cultural treasures, man's cult of beauty.

Anais Nin

#4. As much as we sometimes roll our eyes at the ivory-tower isolation of universities, they continue to serve as remarkable engines of innovation.

Steven Johnson

#5. Anything that promotes a kernel of science, even though it's exaggerated and hyped by Hollywood, I think is a step forward. We in the ivory tower ultimately have to realize that in some sense we have to sing for our supper.

Michio Kaku

#6. You think the queen of the castle is going to let me in the ivory tower?

Jay Crownover

#7. Smooth shapes are very rare in the wild but extremely important in the ivory tower and the factory.

Benoit Mandelbrot

#8. Many live in the ivory tower called reality; they never venture on the open sea of thought.

Francois Gautier

#9. Jan built herself an ivory tower to keep the wolves out; she never dreamed they were already inside.

Seanan McGuire

#10. Suffice it to say that a global theological discussion will have little patience for ivory-tower theology and armchair theologians aloof from the realities facing ordinary Christians.

Craig Ott

#11. Programs, systems and methods sit well in the ivory towers of monasteries or in the wooden arms of icons. Head knowledge comes from the pages of a theology text. But the invitation to know God - truly know Him - is always an invitation to suffer. Not to suffer alone, but to suffer with Him.

Joni Eareckson Tada

#12. I don't want to live in an ivory tower, being the songwriter who just turns inward.

Billie Joe Armstrong

#13. Language evolves and moves on. It is an organic thing. It is not stuck in an ivory tower, hung with expensive works of art and overlooking most of Seattle with a helipad stuck on its roof.

E.L. James

#14. I'm reminded of a conversation I had with your father when you wanted to go to Arrida to ransom Erak. I told him, and I'll tell you now, that a queen-to-be has to do these things - has to take chances. Has to get out in the world. You can't rule properly from an ivory tower.

John Flanagan

#15. The Savior was no ivory-tower observer, no behind-the-lines captain ... The Savior was a participant, a player, who not only understood our plight intellectually, but who felt our wounds because they became his wounds.

Tad R. Callister

#16. I hate that phrase "the real world." Why is an aircraft factory more real than a university? Is it?

Richard Hugo

#17. If you shut yourself up disdainfully in your ivory tower and insist that you have your own conscience and are satisfied with its approval, it is because you know that everybody is criticizing you, condemning you, or laughing at you.

Luigi Pirandello

#18. I'm merely exploring souls & cities
From the vantage point
Of my ivory tower built,
Built with the assistance
of Opium
That's enough, isnt it?

Jack Kerouac

#19. An ivory tower is a fine place as long as the door is open.

Walter Darby Bannard

#20. Chefs who cook in these ivory towers are in control in their own world. We try to approximate that world as best we can, but ultimately our goal is to please our clients.

David Castle

#21. I make friends easily. I'm a gregarious guy, I'm open, I'm easy to get to know - I don't lock myself in an ivory tower. So I like people; I enjoy people.

Jerry Weintraub

#22. You'll make better art after a day at the office than you will after a lifetime in an ivory tower.

Sara Benincasa

#23. That's a big part of being a designer now: going out, having dinners, meeting people. Being in an ivory tower, you can feel very removed.

Joseph Altuzarra

#24. Only humans, cursed with the knowledge of their own mortality and that of those whom they loved, were truly alone; each trapped in an ivory tower of skull and bone peeking out through the windows of the soul. THE

Nevada Barr

#25. The only refuge left to us was the poet's ivory tower, which we climbed, ever higher, to isolate ourselves from the mob.

Gerard De Nerval

#26. I am a huge fan of using social media to connect with people because I think there was this 'ivory tower' aspect of journalism where people might read a byline for years but have no idea about the person who was behind it and never get to communicate with them or ask them a question.

Sarah Lacy

#27. The artist's life is to be where life is, active life, found in neither ivory tower nor concrete shelter; he must be out listening to everything, looking at everything, and thinking it all out afterward.

Sean O'Casey

#28. The commonest ivory tower is that of the average man, the state of passivity towards experience.

W. H. Auden

#29. I hope I'm not giving the impression of an ivory tower science, but for me science is an attempt to understand, it's an attempt to understand the universe.

George Coyne

#30. I've always thought academics should get a little slurry on their boots from time to time.

Karen Lord

#31. Authentic thinking, thinking that is concerned about reality, does not take place in ivory tower isolation, but only in communication. If it is true that thought has meaning only when generated by action upon the world, the subordination of students to teachers becomes impossible.

Paulo Freire

#32. Friedmans influence reaches far beyond the academic community and the world of economics. Rather than lock himself in an ivory tower, he has joined the fray to fight for the survival of this great country of ours.

William E. Simon

#33. Who reflects too much will accomplish little.

Friedrich Schiller

#34. Maybe what I admired most about John Steinbeck is that he never mortgaged his 45-acre heart for a suite in an ivory tower.

Tom Robbins

#35. Scientists are supposed to live in ivory towers. Their darkrooms and their vibration-proof benches are supposed to isolate their activities from the disturbances of common life. What they tell us is supposed to be for the ages, not for the next election. But the reality may be otherwise.

Simon LeVay

#36. Free from ivory-tower
the pencil twirls
across the footpath

Santosh Kalwar

#37. For me or a Bruce Springsteen to sit up in our ivory towers and make comments about racism, well, were not really in it, are we?

John Mellencamp

#38. I don't want to become an ivory tower filmmaker. That sounds peculiar, but I want to be a mainstream filmmaker. I want the largest possible audience that I can find - but, of course, on my terms.

Peter Greenaway

#39. Ivory towers are as rare as bowling alleys in tribal cultures.

Terry Eagleton