Quotes on scholarship that illustrate Sanderson's academic approach, selected by his student and web page designer (see below) from an interview in the book Mastery: Interviews with 30 Remarkable People by Joan Evelyn Ames.
"An effective scholar needs three things: learning, the ability to see connections and, above all, [an] intellectual ability to distinguish."
"The first rule of work must be readiness to examine your positions and to modify or abandon them without delay or embarrassment as soon as you know they are inadequate."
"Intellect is the ability to see what the crucial issues are, to ask the right questions and then to understand the implications of the evidence."
"Your perspective on a question must always be enriched by new questions, new evidence, and a growing knowledge of the wider context of the events or thoughts that concern you."
"The understanding of Śaivism can only aspire to objectivity if it includes a sincere effort to see how things are in the subjective perception of its practitioners. One has to be able to enter into the spirit of their world, to be with them intimately, to see what they are saying and why they are saying it, to go beneath the surface of their texts. There has to be empathy."