Science Quote by Robert James Graves

“Learn the duty” lands like a cold splash before the warmer promise of “taste the pleasure,” and that ordering is the point. Graves, writing from the 19th-century world of professionalizing science, frames originality not as a romantic lightning bolt but as a discipline with moral weight. “Duty” suggests an ethic: you owe something to the work itself, to the standards of proof, to the public claims science dares to make. Original work isn’t just a career move; it’s a responsibility to extend knowledge without cutting corners, copying authority, or chasing applause.

Then he switches verbs: learn versus taste. Learning is slow, almost institutional; tasting is immediate and bodily. The subtext is a warning to novices seduced by the glamour of discovery. You don’t begin with pleasure. You earn the right to it by mastering method, patience, and the unsexy labor of failure, revision, and verification. “Taste” also implies pleasure that’s real but partial - not constant ecstasy, more like brief, memorable hits that arrive after long stretches of grind.

“Original work” is doing double duty, too: it’s a call to create new knowledge, and a rebuke to the era’s reliance on received wisdom and gentlemanly imitation. In a culture where reputation could outrun rigor, Graves is making originality sound less like self-expression and more like stewardship. The line sells science as a life: half obligation, half reward, with the reward only meaningful because the obligation is non-negotiable.