And why do you think that foolishness is bad? If human foolishness had been as carefully nurtured and cultivated as intelligence has been for centuries, perhaps it would have turned into something extremely precious.
Interpretation
Foolishness may hold value if given the same attention and care as intelligence.
In this quote, Yevgeny Zamyatin suggests that human foolishness, often dismissed as negative, could have been developed into something valuable if it had received the same nurturing as intelligence throughout history. This reflects a philosophical perspective on the dual nature of human attributes and challenges the traditional hierarchy that places intelligence above foolishness.
In practice
In a debate about education, one might use this quote to highlight the importance of nurturing creativity and unconventional thinking.
The knife is the most durable, immortal, the most genius thing that man created. The knife was the guillotine; the knife is the universal means of solving all knots; and along the blade of a knife lies the path of paradox - the single most worthy path of the fearless mind.
Accentuated plainness and accentuated vice ought to bring about harmony. Beauty lies in harmony, in style, whether it be the harmony of ugliness or beauty, vice or virtue.
The world is kept alive only by heretics: the heretic Christ, the heretic Copernicus, the heretic Tolstoy. Our symbol of faith is heresy...
The lilac branches are bowed under the weight of the flowers: blooming is hard, and the most important thing is - to bloom. (“A Story About The Most Important Thing”)
A man is like a novel: until the very last page you don't know how it will end. Otherwise it wouldn't be worth reading.
Knowledge, absolutely sure of its infallibility, is faith.
Wir mussen wissen. Wir werden wissen. We must know. We will know. Inscribed on his tomb in Gilttingen.
Since the time of the ancient Greeks, we have always felt that there was a close relationship between a strong, vital mind and physical fitness.
We cannot restore integrity and morality to our society until each of us-singly and individually-takes responsibility for our actions.
We moved together very slowly toward the house, trying to understand its ugliness and ruin and shame.
We are but whirlpools in a river of ever-flowing water. We are not stuff that abides, but patterns that perpetuate themselves. _x000D_ A pattern is a message, and may be transmitted as a message.
As in a Russian doll, however, the outer layers always contain an inner core. Instead of evolution having replaced simpler forms of empathy with more advanced ones, the latter are merely elaborations on the former and remain dependent on them. This also means that empathy comes naturally to us. It is not something we only learn later in life, or that is culturally constructed.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.