The commonest fallacy among women is that simply having children makes them a mother - which is as absurd as believing that having a piano makes one a musician.
Interpretation
Being a mother involves more than just giving birth; it requires active involvement and care.
In this quote, Sydney J. Harris points out the misconception that the mere act of childbirth equates to being a mother. He argues that motherhood comes with responsibilities, nurturing, and a commitment to raising a child well, similar to how one must practice and engage with music to truly be a musician, rather than just owning an instrument.
In practice
This quote can be used in a parenting workshop to emphasize the importance of active participation in a child's life.
A person is either himself or not himself; is either rooted in his existence or is a fabrication; has either found his humanhood or is still playing with masks and roles and status symbols. And nobody is more aware of this difference (although unconsciously) than a child. Only an authentic person can evoke a good response in the core of the other person; only person is resonant to person.
We evaluate others with a Godlike justice, but we want them to evaluate us with a Godlike compassion.
Man's unique agony as a species consists in his perpetual conflict between the desire to stand out and the need to blend in.
"Terrorism" is what we call the violence of the weak, and we condemn it; "war" is what we call the violence of the strong, and we glorify it.
At it's highest level, the purpose of teaching is not to teachβit is to inspire the desire for learning. Once a student's mind is set on fire, it will find a way to provide its own fuel.
You may be sure that when a man begins to call himself a realist he is preparing to do something that he is secretly ashamed of doing.
As a person of color, I was trained from very early on to see 'Leave It to Beaver,' 'Gilligan's Island,' or 'Hamlet' and look beyond the specifics of it - whether it be silly white people on an island or a family living in Nowheres or a Danish person - to leap past the specifics and find the human truths that have to do with me.
Being offended by freedom of speech should never be regarded as a justification for violence.
Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may have not devoted myself to a fantasy.
Terrorism has become a festering wound. It is an enemy of humanity.
Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum -- "I think that I think, therefore I think that I am;" as close an approach to certainty as any philosopher has yet made.
In India, as elsewhere in our darkening world, religion is the poison in the blood. Where religion intervenes, mere innocence is no excuse. Yet we go on skating around this issue, speaking of religion in the fashionable language of 'respect.' What is there to respect in any of this, or in any of the crimes now being committed almost daily around the world in religion's dreaded name?
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