Not only did the young man heed these solemn words in his linguistic research, but he went on to found Stockholm University's Department of Chinese and develop Swedish sinological research towards contemporary Chinese literature.
這段話一直在學界廣為傳頌，而當時在榻前聆聽訓誨的，正是他的高足﹘﹘馬悅然（Prof. N．G．D．Malmqvist）。馬教授不但繼承了高本漢審慎嚴謹的語言學研究，還一手建立斯德哥爾摩大學中文系，並把瑞典漢學研究獨尊先秦的傳統，拓展到對當代中國文學的關注。