The philosopher Frank Ramsey (1903-1930) on how ludicrous it would be to expect academics to publish papers every 6 months

When Ramsey was on a six month visit to Vienna, his academic father was criticising his lack of productivity during the trip. From Cheryl Misak’s (brilliant) Frank Ramsey: A Sheer Excess of Powers loc 4233:

No one can suppose that you can’t research for six months without having a paper ready by the end. If everyone wrote a paper every six months the amount of trivial literature would swell beyond all bounds. Given time I shall produce a good paper. But if I hurry it will be ill written and unintelligible and unconvincing