Education is the methodical creation of the habit of thinking.
A book, like a landscape, is a state of consciousness varying with readers.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes that both books and landscapes can evoke different perceptions and emotions in different individuals.
Ernest Dimnet's quote suggests that our understanding and appreciation of a book, much like a landscape, is subjective and deeply influenced by our own state of consciousness. Each reader interprets a text uniquely based on their experiences, emotions, and thoughts, just as a person views a landscape through the lens of their own perspective. This highlights the personal connection we forge with literature and the varying interpretations that arise from our individual contexts.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the importance of literature at a book club meeting.
More from Ernest Dimnet
All quotes βThe happiness of most people is not ruined by great catastrophes or fatal errors, but by the repetition of slowly destructive little things.
The object of reflection is invariably the discovery of something satisfying to the mind which was not there at the beginning of the search.
Similar quotes
I much prefer working with kids whose life could be completely upended by a reading of a book over a weekend. You give them a book to read - they go home and come back a changed person. And that is so much more interesting and exciting.
For the mind does not require filling like a bottle, but rather, like wood, it only requires kindling to create in it an impulse to think independently and an ardent desire for the truth.
to read is to surrender oneself to an endless displacement of curiosity and desire from one sentence to another, from one action to another, from one level of a text to another. The text unveils itself before us, but never allows itself to be possessed; and instead of trying to possess it we should take pleasure in its teasing
History offers us vicarious experience. It allows the youngest student to possess the ground equally with his elders; without a knowledge of history to give him a context for present events, he is at the mercy of every social misdiagnosis handed to him.
Like our physical bodies, our memory becomes out of shape. As children, we are constantly learning new experiences, but by the time we reach our 20s, we start to lead a more sedentary life both mentally and physically. Our lives become routine, and we stop challenging our brains, and our memory starts to suffer.
Books are the air I breathe, so I don't notice the seasons.