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Letter: We learn a little

Published 24 March 2010

From Michael Berkson

I am afraid that Derek Hallam (13 February, p 25) and Paul Parsons (16 January, p 38) are misquoting Alexander Pope.

The quotation correctly reads: “A little learning is a dang’rous thing” – a very different concept to knowledge.

The stanza continues: “Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:/ There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,/ And drinking largely sobers us again.”

Great Shelford, Cambridgeshire, UK

Issue no. 2753 published 27 March 2010

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