The natural inclination of a child is to take pleasure in the use of the mind no less than of the body. The child's primary business is learning. It is also the primary entertainment. To retain that orientation into adulthood, so that consciousness is not a burden but a joy, is the mark of the successfully developed human being.
Interpretation
Children inherently enjoy learning and using their minds, and maintaining that joy into adulthood is crucial for personal development.
The quote by Nathaniel Branden emphasizes the importance of maintaining the natural joy of learning that children experience. It suggests that children find pleasure in using their minds just as much as their bodies and that this inclination towards learning should be preserved into adulthood. When individuals retain this orientation, it transforms the process of thinking and consciousness from a burden into a source of joy, signifying a successful and well-developed human being.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about the importance of lifelong learning.
Living consciously is seeking to be aware of everything that bears on our interests, actions, values, purposes, and goals. It is the willingness to confront facts, pleasant or unpleasant. It is the desire to discover our mistakes and correct them . . . it is the quest to keep expanding our awareness and understanding, both of the world external to self and the world within.
If you are an adult, you are responsible for your life and well-being. No one owes you the fulfillment of your needs or wants; no one is here on earth to serve you. If you respect the principle of self-ownership, you understand that no one else owns you and that you do not own anyone else. Only on this understanding can there be peace on earth and good will among human beings.
It is a mistake to look at someone who is self assertive and say, "It's easy for her, she has good self-esteem." One of the ways you build self-esteem is by being self-assertive when it is not easy to do so. There are always times when self-assertiven ess requires courage, no matter how high your self-esteem.
Living consciously reflects the conviction that sight is preferable to blindness; that respecting the facts of reality is more satisfying than denying them; that evasion does not make the unreal real or the real unreal; that it is better to correct your mistakes that to pretend they do not exist; and that the more conscious you are of facts bearing on your life and goals, the more wisely and effectively you can act.
One of the hardest expressions of self-assertiveness is challenging your limiting beliefs.
How do we keep our inner fire alive? Two things, at minimum, are needed: an ability to appreciate the positives in our life – and a commitment to action. Every day, it's important to ask and answer these questions: ‘What's good in my life?’ and ‘What needs to be done?
A teacher who cannot explain any abstract subject to a child does not himself thoroughly understand his subject; if he does not attempt to break down his knowledge to fit the child's mind, he does not understand teaching.
Schools should take part in the great work of construction and organization that will have to be done.
The job of a teacher is to excite in the young a boundless sense of curiosity about life, so that the growing child shall come to apprehend it with an excitement tempered by awe and wonder.
It is not the task of the University to offer what society asks for, but to give what society needs.
To study the phenomena of disease without books is to sail an uncharted sea, while to study books without patients is not to go to sea at all.
If all females were not only well educated themselves but were prepared to communicate in an easy manner their stores of knowledge to others; if they not only knew how to regulate their own minds, tempers, and habits but how to effect improvements in those around them, the face of society would be speedily changed.
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