I have always been of the mind that in a democracy manners are the only effective weapons against the bowie-knife.
James Russell LowellRead
To educate the intelligence is to expand the horizon of its wants and desires.
Interpretation
Education broadens our understanding and aspirations.
This quote by James Russell Lowell emphasizes that education is not just about acquiring knowledge, but also about enhancing our desires and ambitions. When we educate ourselves, we expand our capacity to want more from life, whether that be in terms of knowledge, experiences, or achievements, leading to a more fulfilling existence.
In practice
During a commencement speech to inspire graduates about the importance of lifelong learning.
I have always been of the mind that in a democracy manners are the only effective weapons against the bowie-knife.
The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinions.
Not failure, but low aim, is crime.
Good luck is the willing handmaid of upright, energetic character, and conscientious observance of duty.
Puritanism, believing itself quick with the seed of religious liberty, laid, without knowing it, the egg of democracy.
Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind.
I loved teaching, but every day that I went to work, I carried the worry that I was hurting my kids because I wasn't at home with them.
There is a temperate zone in the mind, between luxurious indolence and exacting work; and it is to this region, just between laziness and labor, that summer reading belongs.
My chief identity, to my mind, was not 'writer' but 'college dropout.'
I never attended a creative writing class in my life. I have a horror of them.
And read⦠read all the time⦠read as a matter of principle, as a matter of self-respect. Read as a nourishing staple of life.
What we want to help children with is, just because you feel sad or happy or depressed doesn't mean that is who you are. We want them to know, 'I am really sad right now, but I am not a sad person.'
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