Cultivate the habit of attention and try to gain opportunities to hear wise men and women talk. Indifference and inattention are the two most dangerous monsters that you ever meet. Interest and attention will insure to you an education.
Interpretation
Pay attention to wise individuals to gain knowledge and avoid the dangers of indifference.
This quote emphasizes the importance of actively listening to knowledgeable people in order to enhance one’s education. It warns that indifference and lack of attention are significant obstacles to learning and personal growth, suggesting that being engaged and curious can lead to a richer understanding of the world.
In practice
In a motivational speech about lifelong learning.
Indeed, I suspect that the changes that have taken place during the last century in the average man's fundamental beliefs, in his philosophy, in his conception of religion, in his whole world outlook, are greater than the changes that occurred during the preceding four thousand years all put together.
Fullness of knowledge always means some understanding of the depths of our ignorance; and that is always conducive to humility and reverence.
This much I can say with definiteness - namely, that there is no scientific basis for the denial of religion - nor is there in my judgment any excuse for a conflict between science and religion, for their fields are entirely different. Men who know very little of science and men who know very little of religion do indeed get to quarreling, and the onlookers imagine that there is a conflict between science and religion, whereas the conflict is only between two different species of ignorance.
Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.
What we want... is for students to get more interested in things, more involved in them, more engaged in wanting to know; to have projects that they can get excited about and work on over long periods of time, to be stimulated to find things out on their own.
Learning to write programs stretches your mind, and helps you think better, creates a way of thinking about things that I think is helpful in all domains.
Access to quality education has enabled me to reach far beyond the Bangladeshi village I grew up in.
You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother.
The scandal of education is that every time you teach something, you deprive a [student] of the pleasure and benefit of discovery.
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