One of our worst traits in journalism is that when we have a narrative in our minds, we often plug in anecdotes that confirm it. Thus we managed to portray President Gerald Ford, a first-rate athlete, as a klutz.
Nicholas KristofRead
Why are fanatics so terrified of girls' education? Because there's no force more powerful to transform a society. The greatest threat to extremism isn't drones firing missiles, but girls reading books.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the transformative power of girls' education in combating extremism.
Nicholas Kristof emphasizes that the education of girls is a crucial factor in social transformation and that it poses a greater threat to extremism than military interventions. By advocating for girls' education, he points to the idea that knowledge and empowerment can dismantle oppressive ideologies and lead to a more enlightened and progressive society.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech advocating for girls' education during an educational conference.
One of our worst traits in journalism is that when we have a narrative in our minds, we often plug in anecdotes that confirm it. Thus we managed to portray President Gerald Ford, a first-rate athlete, as a klutz.
A basic element of the American dream is equal access to education as the lubricant of social and economic mobility.
Worrying about bills, food, or other problems leaves less capacity to think ahead or to exert self-discipline. So, poverty imposes a mental tax.
Most moms and dads, they want to be good moms and dads. But it's an incredibly hard job when you are stressed out, when you are poor, when your life is in chaos. And giving them some of the tools to be better parents, to whittle away at that parenting gap, gives those kids a much better starting point in life.
Since the end of the 1970s, something has gone profoundly wrong in America. Inequality has soared. Educational progress slowed. Incarceration rates quintupled. Family breakdown accelerated. Median household income stagnated.
The news media's silence, particularly television news, is reprehensible. If we knew as much about Darfur as we do about Michael Jackson, we might be able to stop these things from continuing.
Stay curious, keep learning and keep growing. And always strive to be more interested than interesting.
Reading is, at its best, not an escape; it is genuine experience. A novel is not a monologue, but a conversation, a collaboration between writer and reader, an invaluable exchange of human conditions.
We are tired of aristocratic explanations in Harvard words.
Our schools and colleges are turning out people who cannot feel fulfilled unless they are telling other people what to do.
I like books that aren't just lovely but that have memories in themselves. Just like playing a song, picking up a book again that has memories can take you back to another place or another time.
Someday America will have its very own commercial-free TV and radio station devoted to only one thing: to teach people, in their homes, all the essentials of personal achievement.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.