Authors like cats because they are such quiet, lovable, wise creatures, and cats like authors for the same reasons.
Robertson DaviesRead
The greatest gift that Oxford gives her sons is, I truly believe, a genial irreverence toward learning, and from that irreverence love may spring.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the value of a playful and questioning attitude towards learning as a pathway to genuine understanding and love for knowledge.
Robertson Davies suggests that the unique educational experience at Oxford nurtures a spirit of irreverence among its students, encouraging them to question and challenge traditional ideas. This attitude not only makes learning more enjoyable but also fosters a deeper affection for the pursuit of knowledge, highlighting the importance of curiosity and creativity in education.
Themes
EducationIrreverenceLearningCuriosityLoveKnowledge
In practice
Example use cases
During a commencement speech, to inspire graduates to embrace learning as a journey rather than a task.
More from Robertson Davies
All quotes βPessimism is a very easy way out because it is a short view of life. If you look at what is happening around us today, you can't help but feel that life is a terrible complexity of problems. But if you look back a few thousand years, you realize that we have advanced fantastically. If you take a long view, I do not see how you can be pessimistic about the future of mankind.
Robertson DaviesRead
This is one of the cruelties of the theatre of life; we all think of ourselves as stars and rarely recognize it when we are indeed mere supporting characters or even supernumeraries.
Robertson DaviesRead
Everything matters. The Universe is approximately fifteen billion years old, and I swear that in all that time, nothing has ever happened that has not mattered, has not contributed in some way to the totality.
Robertson DaviesRead
The egotist is all surface; underneath is a pulpy mess and a lot of self-doubt. But the egoist may be yielding and even deferential in things he doesn't consider important; in anything that touches his core he is remorseless.
Robertson DaviesRead
The world is full of people whose notion of a satisfactory future is, in fact, a return to the idealized past.
Robertson DaviesRead
Similar quotes
People need to know more than what a piece of information means. They also need to know how the information matters.
John Seely BrownRead
Today it is time for every child to have a right to life, right to freedom, right to health, right to education, safety, the right to dignity, right to equality, and right to peace.
Kailash SatyarthiRead
Without writing, the literate mind would not and could not think as it does, not only when engaged in writing but normally even when it is composing its thoughts in oral form. More than any other single invention writing has transformed human consciousness.
Walter J. OngRead
Books, for me, are a home. Books donβt make a home β they are one, in the sense that just as you do with a door, you open a book, and you go inside. Inside there is a different kind of time and a different kind of space.
Jeanette WintersonRead
I always read. You know how sharks have to keep swimming or they die? Iβm like that. If I stop reading, I die.
Patrick RothfussRead
I come to writing the same way I come to teaching, which is that my goal is always to create life-long readers.
Rick RiordanRead