On professionalism

The word "professional'' as been used and abused. It is nowadays often confused with "bureaucrat'' or with "wearing a suit and a tie''. But let's see what Schopenhauer had to say when he contrasted professionals to dilettantes, an also confused word:

"Dilettantes! Dilettantes! - this is the derogatory cry (directed at) those who apply themselves to art or science for the sake of gain raise against those who pursue it for love of it and pleasure in it... The truth, however, is that to the dilettante the thing is the end, while to the professional as such it is the means; and only he who is diretly interested in a thing, and occupies himself with it from love of it, will pursue it with entire seriousness. It is from such as these, and not from wage-earners, that the greatest things have always come." Parerga and Paralipomena, 1851 (Essays and Aphorisms, R. J. Hollingdale, trans., London Penguin Books, 1970), p 227.