Sweet is the voice of a sister in the season of sorrow.
Benjamin DisraeliRead
He was distinguished for ignorance; for he had only one idea, and that was wrong.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the dangers of limited thinking and the pitfalls of clinging to incorrect beliefs.
Benjamin Disraeli's quote emphasizes how a lack of diverse understanding can lead to a distorted view of reality. Being distinguished for ignorance suggests that an individual may be recognized or memorable, but only for their failure to grasp a broader perspective, which can be detrimental when the singular idea they hold is also misguided. Thus, it serves as a warning against close-mindedness and the importance of having a more informed and open-minded approach toward knowledge.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of critical thinking in education.
Sweet is the voice of a sister in the season of sorrow.
But what minutes! Count them by sensation, and not by calendars, and each moment is a day.
Grief is the agony of an instant. The indulgence of grief the blunder of a life.
Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.
Yes, I am a Jew and when the ancestors of the right honorable gentleman were brutal savages in an unknown island, mine were priests in the temple of Solomon.
The practice of politics in the East may be defined by one word: dissimulation.
Words are sacred. If you get the right ones in the right order you can nudge the world a little.
There are no limitations to the mind except those we acknowledge.
Our people are slow to learn the wisdom of sending character instead of talent to Congress. Again and again they have sent a man of great acuteness, a fine scholar, a fine forensic orator, and some master of the brawls has crunched him up in his hands like a bit of paper.
Do not say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders, so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary.
True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.
Nothing frustrates me more than someone who reads something of mine or anyone else's and says, angrily, 'I don't buy it.' Why are they angry? Good writing does not succeed or fail on the strength of its ability to persuade. It succeeds or fails on the strength of its ability to engage you, to make you think, to give you a glimpse into someone else's headβeven if in the end you conclude that someone else's head is not a place you'd really like to be.
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