The joy of learning is as indispensable in study as breathing is in running. Where it is lacking there are no real students, but only poor caricatures of apprentices who, at the end of their apprenticeship, will not even have a trade.
Interpretation
True learning requires genuine joy; without it, one cannot truly grasp knowledge.
In this quote, Simone Weil emphasizes that the joy of learning is essential for real education, much like breathing is vital for running. If students lack this joy, they merely go through the motions without truly engaging, resulting in superficial knowledge rather than meaningful understanding.
In practice
This quote could be shared during a commencement speech to inspire graduates to find joy in their future studies.
The afflicted are not listened to. They are like someone whose tongue has been cut out and who occasionally forgets the fact. When they move their lips no ear perceives any sound. And they themselves soon sink into impotence in the use of language, because of the certainty of not being heard.
The appetite for power, even for universal power, is only insane when there is no possibility of indulging it; a man who sees the possibility opening before him and does not try to grasp it, even at the risk of destroying himself and his country, is either
As soon as men know that they can kill without fear of punishment or blame, they kill; or at least they encourage killers with approving smiles.
Evil is license, and that is why it is monotonous: everything has to be drawn from ourselves. One is condemned to false infinity. That is hell itself.
I am not a Catholic; but I consider the Christian idea, which has its roots in Greek thought and in the course of the centuries has nourished all of our European civilization, as something that one cannot renounce without becoming degraded.
How many people have been thus led, through lack of self-confidence, to stifle their most justified doubts?
We are all born with the power of speech, but we need grammar. Conscience, too, needs Revelation.
We in the media have been guilty about not doing a better job of making people understand how really simple cooking is. We've made everyone feel like they have to be a chef.
We are storytelling creatures, and as children we acquire language to tell those stories that we have inside us.
Few professors would dare to publish research or teach a course debunking the claims made in various ethnic, gender, or other 'studies' courses.
All children are born to grow, to develop, to live, to love, and to articulate their needs and feelings for their self-protection
I believe that good questions are more important than answers, and the best children's books ask questions, and make the readers ask questions. And every new question is going to disturb someone's universe.
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