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.
Inclusive, good-quality education is a foundation for dynamic and equitable societies.
A good book, in the language of the book-sellers, is a salable one; in that of the curious, a scarce one; in that of men of sense, a useful and instructive one.
Let those who will write the nation's laws, if I can write its textbooks.
Let woman out of the home, let man into it, should be the aim of education. The home needs man, and the world outside needs woman.
There is so much potential out there in young people and they aren't getting the right information or being encouraged in the right ways. This is our duty as a society.
In my work as a historian and in my relationships as a friend, teacher, wife, and mother, I have come to think that the most useful way to understand the past and make it work for you is to look at the trade-offs and contradictions that, however deeply buried, can be uncovered in every memory, good or bad.
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