Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.
Charles William EliotRead
Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counsellors, and the most patient of teachers.
Interpretation
Books serve as reliable companions that offer knowledge and wisdom without judgment.
This quote emphasizes the invaluable role of books in our lives. They provide us with guidance and understanding, much like a loyal friend who is always there to listen, offer advice, and teach us patiently, making them essential tools for personal growth and learning.
In practice
During a school presentation on the importance of reading, I shared this quote to highlight how books can be our lifelong companions.
Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.
All business proceeds on beliefs, or judgments of probabilities, and not on certainties.
The best way to secure future happiness is to be as happy as is rightfully possible to-day.
Books are the quietest and most constant of friends.
If the whole world depends on today's youth, I can't see the world lasting another 100 years.
Emphatic and reiterated assertion, especially during childhood, produces in most people a belief so firm as to have a hold even over the unconscious.
Writing simply means no dependent clauses, no dangling things, no flashbacks, and keeping the subject near the predicate. We throw in as many fresh words we can get away with. Simple, short sentences don't always work. You have to do tricks with pacing, alternate long sentences with short, to keep it vital and alive.... Virtually every page is a cliffhanger--you've got to force them to turn it."~
Without the concepts, methods and results found and developed by previous generations right down to Greek antiquity one cannot understand either the aims or achievements of mathematics in the last 50 years. [Said in 1950]
I am aware of the technical distinction between ‘less’ and ‘fewer’, and between ‘uninterested’ and ‘disinterested’ and ‘infer’ and ‘imply’, but none of these are of importance to me. ‘None of these are of importance,’ I wrote there, you’ll notice – the old pedantic me would have insisted on “none of them is of importance”. Well I’m glad to say I’ve outgrown that silly approach to language
Here I was into astronomy, and here into anthropology, and there I go into geology. It was much more fun to be able to research and write about whatever I wanted to.
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