The art of reading is to skip judiciously.
Interpretation
Reading wisely means focusing on important parts while avoiding unnecessary details.
Alexander Hamilton suggests that effective reading involves the skillful selection of what to read, allowing the reader to engage with substantive content while bypassing less relevant information. This approach enhances understanding and retention of key ideas, emphasizing that not all text requires equal attention.
In practice
A teacher might use this quote to encourage students to prioritize important texts.
When men, engaged in unjustifiable pursuits, are aware that obstructions may come from a quarter which bare apprehension of opposition from doing what they would with eagerness rush into if no such external impediments were to be feared.
The tendency of a national bank is to increase public and private credit. The former gives power to the state, for the protection of its rights and interests: and the latter facilitates and extends the operations of commerce among individuals. Industry is increased, commodities are multiplied, agriculture and manufacturers flourish: and herein consists the true wealth and prosperity of a state.
It's not tyranny we desire; it's a just, limited, federal government.
The Achaeans soon experienced, as often happens, that a victorious and powerful ally is but another name for a master.
The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge right or make good decision.
The true principle of a republic is that the people should choose whom they please to govern them. Representation is imperfect, in proportion as the current of popular favor is checked. The great source of free government, popular election, should be perfectly pure, and the most unbounded liberty allowed.
The greatest gift is a passion for reading. It is cheap, it consoles, it distracts, it excites, it gives you knowledge of the world and experience of a wide kind. It is a moral illumination.
The scandal of education is that every time you teach something, you deprive a [student] of the pleasure and benefit of discovery.
If you have children, you cannot feed them forever with flags for breakfast and cartridges for lunch. You need something more substantial. Unless you educate your children and spend less money on conflicts, unless you develop your science, technology and industry, you don't have a future.
If you would be holy, instruct your children, because all the good acts they perform will be imputed to you.
I convinced myself economic empowerment of women was going to be key, especially in a country like this where most women didn't go to school.
Learning to read, for the brain, is a lot like an amateur ringmaster first learning how to organise a three-ring circus. He wants to begin individually and then synchronise all the performances. It only happens after all the separate acts are learned and practised long and well.
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