Who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image, but thee who destroys a good book, kills reason its self.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the value of literature and knowledge, suggesting that destroying a good book is akin to killing reason itself.
John Milton's quote articulates the deep connection between humanity, reason, and literature. While taking a life is a grave act against a rational being created in God's image, the act of destroying a good book is viewed as an even greater crime because it obliterates the repository of human thought and reason. Books serve as vessels of wisdom, culture, and understanding; thus, to destroy them is to attack the very essence of human rationality and enlightenment.
In practice
During a lecture on the importance of literature, this quote can be used to highlight why books are essential to society.
They, looking back, all the eastern side beheld Of Paradise, so late their happy seat, Waved over by that flaming brand, the gate With dreadful faces thronged and fiery arms: Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon; The world was all before them, where to choose Their place of rest, and Providence their guide; They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow, Through Eden took their solitary way.
The stars, that nature hung in heaven, and filled their lamps with everlasting oil, give due light to the misled and lonely traveller.
Ev'n them who kept thy truth so pure of old, When all our fathers worshipp'd stocks and stones.
Abashed the devil stood and felt how awful goodness is and saw Virtue in her shape how lovely: and pined his loss
The end of all learning is to know God, and out of that knowledge to love and imitate Him.
Apt words have power to suage the tumors of a troubled mind.
I pecked my stories out two-fingered on the Remington portable typewriter my mother had bought me. I had begged for it when I was ten.
What distinguishes a great mnemonist, I learned, is the ability to create lavish images on the fly, to paint in the mind a scene so unlike any other it cannot be forgotten. And to do it quickly. Many competitive mnemonists argue that their skills are less a feat of memory than of creativity.
If today you can take a thing like evolution and make it a crime to teach it in the public school, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools, and the next year you can make it a crime to teach it to the hustings or in the church. At the next session you may ban books and newspapers. Soon you may set Catholic against Protestant and Protestant against Protestant, and try to foist your own religion upon the minds of men.
If you read a book about school - someone else's book - you always translate it into your own school experiences. It's describing the student: he's bewildered and lost in a large crowd in a university classroom. You'll visualize that from your own experiences. So, everything you know is what you're really writing.
Whenever I met anyone who knew anything, I would bore them stiff until they told me what they knew.
If you do a job where someone tells you exactly what to do, they will find someone cheaper than you to do it. And yet our schools are churning out kids who are stuck looking for jobs where the boss tells them exactly what to do.
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