"The Proper Study" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. Inspired by a painting of a head surrounded by random psychedelic designs, it was commissioned by Boy's Life, and published in the September 1968 issue. (The other story commissioned for the picture was The Faun. by Poul Anderson.) The Proper Study was reprinted in the 1975 collection Buy Jupiter and Other Stories.
The title is taken from a quote by Alexander Pope ("The proper study of mankind is man.").
Read more about The Proper Study: Plot Summary
Famous quotes containing the words proper and/or study:
“Sometimes in our relationship to another human being the proper balance of friendship is restored when we put a few grains of impropriety onto our own side of the scale.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“To study the stars upon the wide, boundless sea, is divine as it was to the Chaldean Magi, who observed their revolutions from the plains.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)