Professional

“ Add then to the knowledge which you already possess patient study and careful practice, and above all, see that you add to professional ability, the strictest integrity of conduct, without which your career, however brilliant for the time, cannot fail to be attended with disgrace in the end. Recollect the promise which you have just made to maintain on all occasions the purity and reputation of the profession, and never to deviate from the straight path of its honourable exercise. ”

“ This contrast is traceable not only as we pass from popular ignorance to professional knowledge, but as we pass from the smaller professional knowledge of early times to the greater professional knowledge of our own. ”

“ Let the profession of your choice be emphatically your life-work. Direct to its study the best powers of your mind. In your professional career propose to yourself an exalted aim and put in its service a persevering fidelity. ”

“ Let all knowledge which bears upon it directly or indirectly claim your closest attention, and thus prove to the world, by acts as well as by words, that you are earnest men engaged in an earnest work, and that you are resolved to ground your claims to advancement, not on smiles and favors, not on patrons and friends, but on the extent and value to the community of your professional acquirements. ”

“ The professional—the chronic—exercises an ingenuity, and devotes an amount of time and labour to the perfecting of his craft which, if applied directly to his allotted task, would bring him out at the top of his form. ”

“ To attain eminence in one of the learned professions it is necessary for a man’s colleagues to think highly of his professional knowledge and attainments. It is not always possible for the leaders in your profession to know you personally, but if you can write they soon know what manner of man you are. ”

“ The professional man, the politician, the artist, the financier, if he would be the best among his fellows, must have at his command a knowledge of the past. And it goes without saying that he who would write history, or teach it, must avail himself of all existing facilities in preparation for his profession. ”

“ Let your professional character, in short, be the real patron to which you manfully and confidently look for ultimate success in life. Every one knows full well that the busiest men, if methodical, have always leisure time for studies and pursuits other than those directly connected with their profession ”

“ The professional avenues of distinction which, early in the twentieth century, were only three or four, had, by the end of the century, been multiplied tenfold by the birth or creation of new Professions. ”

“ Having descended to the very minutiæ of a long, extensive, and successful practice, to form your mind, and regulate your manners in every professional transaction of your life, I cannot doubt, but rules so directly consonant to your personal interest and reputation, will receive every assistance from your unerring consistency and perseverance, conveying a perfect corroboration of the gratitude you feel, for the intrinsic worth of so liberal and friendly a communication. ”

“ One whose business requires him to meet large numbers of persons who are all in the same predicament, is in danger of generalizing from a too narrow experience. The teacher, the charity-worker, the preacher, the physician, the man of business, each has his method of professional classification. ”

“ Your professional knowledge and skill will, on the one hand, enable you to drive quacks out of practice, whilst your knowledge of the habits of the people and your sympathy with them will secure you, on the other, a cordial reception in native homes. ”

“ By degrees I rose in society, and leagued myself with a set of professional sharpers, who found me so fine a subject to work upon, that a short time, with plenty of practice, put me in possession of all the most desperate jobs. ”

“ The professional knew so much better than anybody else just what was the real standard of the big work, and the long rehearsal of the night before had set him marvelling at the perseverance which had brought it into presentable form. ”

“ A clear head and a cool judgment are among the most necessary qualities. Urbane and affable in his manners; your first-class professional is an accomplished gentleman; his knowledge of the world and daily contact with people of all conditions allow him to assimilate himself with quiet dignity with persons of all rank in the social scale of life. ”

“ In fact, it seems as if all special professions have to some extent a narrowing influence on the mind, which in ordinary cases prevents specialists forming an unbiassed judgment on any question which extends beyond the precise limits of their actual professional practice. ”

“ It is remarkable that, while many of these contributions may be attributed to the laudable motive of professional reputation and advancement on the part of practitioners not yet sufficiently known to the public, a great number are from Gentlemen whose position in the confidence of their respective Governments or in the Republic of Arts and Letters is of the highest eminence, and who can have been actuated by no such personal motives. ”

“ The profession which you have chosen is one of the most honorable, but at the same time you should not forget that it is a profession crowded with men of merit, that competition is very keen and professional success difficult to secure without years of close application to study, and a careful cultivation of the habit of speaking with simplicity, readiness and precision. ”

“ If we had a good deal less of bombast and self laudation, and more of honesty and fair dealing in the profession, the public would have more confidence in professional men, and would be more likely to practice what we preach. ”

“ It appears to me that, at certain periods of ancient times, the standard of professional excellence was such as would not easily [xi] be attained at the present day, with all our vaunted improvements in knowledge; and that many of those early masters of our art were distinguished for varied stores of erudition, an ardent love of truth, and an aptitude to detect the fallacies of error, such as few of us even now can lay claim to. ”

“ I confess that natural aptitude justifies in a measure the expressions "a born lawyer," "a born doctor," etc.; still, more of what we call professional skill is obtained by training than by derivation. ”

“ The preparation of the aspirant to professional standing and distinction, or even to the most modest success, thus involves wise counsel from older and more experienced minds, from the earliest to the latest years of this long apprenticeship. ”

“ The standard of work that ensures a successful professional career is now technically very high and nothing but years of determined study can equip you for equal competition with the rest in the field. ”

“ Do not get the professional point of view. There is nothing narrower or more unserviceable than the professional point of view, to have the attitude toward life that it centers in your profession. It does not. ”

“ And our most progressive centers are looking upon him as a specialist, an educational expert, and demanding in him an educational and a professional equipment commensurate with the larger, more difficult, and most important work. ”

“ For their special behoof little need be said; they have acquired and practise unconsciously the principles already recommended; in order to improve in the matter of breaks they must work on professional lines, and may, within the limits which their powers prescribe, follow professional play. ”

“ The narrowing and ever-increasingly narrowing tendency of professional pursuits, in these modern times of division of intellectual labor and eager struggle for life, renders the formation of such associations very necessary. ”

“ Here the workpeople, as a rule, had no belief in association except for defensive purposes. It was chiefly amongst young professional men that the idea was working, and it was necessary to preach it to those whom it most concerned. ”

“ Dangers of Specialization in Professional Work.—We are beginning to see that this process may be carried so far that a shallow and a cheap person may so fill the exacting and narrow routine of a specialty of manual work or professional service as to check ambition and power to achieve a full and rich personality. ”

“ We believe that professional experts, and even the foremost pioneers in the new fields which have thus been opened, will find valued help, either of cheering encouragement, or of wise, restraining caution, in his passing comments on their materials or methods. ”

“ It is all in the way of professional experience." ”

“ My professional life has been a constant record of disillusion, and many things that seem wonderful to most men are the every-day commonplaces of my business. ”

“ When I want a broad-minded opinion for general enlightenment, distinct from special advice, I never go to a man who deals in the subject professionally. So I like the parson's opinion on law, the lawyer's on doctoring, the doctor's on business, and my business-man's—that is, yours—on morals." ”

“ It keeps him from ruts and grooves and from fossilizing professionally. The lawyer, the business man and the physician are often rubbing against their equals and superiors, and this is a thought-awakener to them which the teacher often misses. ”

“ Professionalism and practical serviceability have been gradually crowded into the background of academic interests and overlaid with quasi-utilitarian research -- such as the history of jurisprudence, comparative physiology, and the like. ”

“ The higher quality of its work will be reflected in the greater pride of the worker—in a spirit of professionalism that will insist on adequate training and proper compensation and possibly will use organization to enforce these ideals. ”

“ and every doctor will allow a colleague to decimate a whole countryside sooner than violate the bond of professional etiquet by giving him away. ”

“ This professional conscientiousness is highly creditable to you, but it places us in a very awkward position. KO. My good sir, the awkwardness of your position is grace itself compared with that of a man engaged in the act of cutting off his own head. ”

“ We learn more from them each year. You should see all the books and lectures on Cavesword ... several hundred important ones which we have to read as part of our communication duties, though they’re not for the laymen. We discourage nonprofessionals from going into such problems, much too complicated for the untrained mind. ”

“ So with the engineer, the surveyor, the accountant, or the technician generally, who has to maintain standards of service and of efficiency against the bias of profit-making. So with the manager, the secretary, or the officer of a corporation — for here business as- sumes most nearly the aspect of a profession — who has to reconcile the trust imposed on him by his employers with the duty he owes to himself and to those whose service he in turn controls. ”

“ Entire devotion to the interest of the client, warm zeal in the maintenance and defence of his rights, and the exertion of his utmost learning and ability,—these are the higher points, which can only satisfy the truly conscientious practitioner. ”

“ He engages that he possesses that reasonable degree of learning, skill, and experience which is ordinarily possessed by the professors of the same art or science, and which is ordinarily regarded by the community or by those conversant with that employment as necessary and sufficient to qualify him to engage in such business. He contracts also to employ reasonable and ordinary care and diligence in the exertion of his skill and application of his knowledge to the matter in which he is employed. ”

“ The Profession to which you belong is the portal to all those places of power, honour, and emolument. In that Profession knowledge and industry are almost sure to attain distinction and pre-eminence. It may be said men have risen to eminence at the bar without the aid of lectures, or the laborious study we now propose. ”

“ Of all experts, I may be permitted to say perhaps, that the most eminent are those connected with the professions, for we must rank the professions higher than the arts, just as the arts are above the trades. We have three great professions, to wit, the Ministry, Medicine, and Law. If we could have before us the most prominent Minister, the most celebrated Physician, and the most eminent Lawyer, we would probably have three men standing equally high in public esteem. ”

“ The choice rests with himself; he will be what he wants to be, or what he is able to be—professor, engineer, physician, member of the bar, an administrator or a functionary. In each of his qualifications he renders an important service to the public, he exercises an honorable profession; let him be competent and expert, that concerns society. ”

“ Your profession has this agreeable peculiarity in it, which is, that it is connected with, and promoted by pleasures; and it is the only one in which a thorough knowledge of the world, polite manners, and an engaging address, are absolutely necessary. If a lawyer knows his law, a parson his divinity, and a financier his calculations, each may make a figure and a fortune in his profession, without great knowledge of the world, and without the manners of gentlemen. ”