walk by trees and brooks and gain of wisdom

While some delve deep in musty books in search of learning rare,

ye wise folk walk by trees and brooks and gain of wisdom there.

Anonymous

Dave Rearick  told me this quote, which he had seen in a print mounted on a wall.  He balances the quote by saying that we need to learn what others have done and not just discover things that are already known.  However several revolutionary scientists seem to have both been partly self-taught (Ramanujan and Zhang in mathematics), and/or have been productive when they were out in nature, being  playful,  conversing with friends, or traveling to visit other scientists (Ulam, Bohr, Szilard, Newton, ....).