A politician thinks of the next election. A statesman, of the next generation.
James Freeman ClarkeRead
When I consider what some books have done for the world, and what they are doing, how they keep up our hope, awaken new courage and faith, soothe pain, give an ideal life those whose hours are cold and hard, bind together distant ages and foreign lands, create new worlds of beauty, bring down truth from heaven; I give eternal blessings for this gift, and thank God for books.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Books profoundly impact lives, offering hope, courage, and a connection across time and place.
In this quote, James Freeman Clarke expresses the transformative power of books, highlighting their ability to inspire hope, awaken courage, and provide comfort during difficult times. He celebrates books as a vital gift that connects different eras and cultures, creating a beautiful world of imagination and truth that enriches human experience.
Themes
BooksHopeCourageWisdomEducation
In practice
Example use cases
During a book club meeting, I would quote this to highlight the importance of literature.
More from James Freeman Clarke
All quotes →Similar quotes
Being a librarian certainly helped me with my writing because it made me even more of a reader, and I was always an enthusiastic reader. Writing and reading seem to me to be different aspects of a single imaginative act.
Margaret MahyRead
A man with a scant vocabulary will almost certainly be a weak thinker. The richer and more copious one's vocabulary and the greater one's awareness of fine distinctions and subtle nuances of meaning, the more fertile and precise is likely to be one's thinking. Knowledge of things and knowledge of the words for them grow together. If you do not know the words, you can hardly know the thing.
Henry HazlittRead
Because you don't learn anything unless you can find the patience to read. TV takes that away from you. It robs you from your mind.
Markus ZusakRead
Problems may be solved in the study which have baffled all those who have sought a solution by the aid of their senses. To carry the art, however, to its highest pitch, it is necessary that the reasoner should be able to use all the facts which have come to his knowledge; and this in itself implies, as you will readily see, a possession of all knowledge, which, even in these days of free education and encyclopaedias, is a somewhat rare accomplishment.
Arthur Conan DoyleRead
Besides language and music, it [mathematics] is one of the primary manifestations of the free creative power of the human mind, and it is the universal organ for world understanding through theoretical construction. Mathematics must therefore remain an essential element of the knowledge and abilities which we have to teach, of the culture we have to transmit, to the next generation.
Hermann WeylRead
You can't educate a child who isn't healthy, and you can't keep a child healthy who isn't educated.
Joycelyn EldersRead