Older boys were allowed to beat younger ones at my 15th-century English boarding school, and every boy had to run a five-mile annual steeplechase through the sludge and rain of an October day, as horses do. We wrote poems in dead languages and recited the Lord's Prayer in Latin every Sunday night.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the challenging environment of a 15th-century English boarding school, emphasizing both physical trials and intellectual rigor.
Pico Iyer describes the harsh yet formative experiences of boys in a 15th-century boarding school, highlighting the physical endurance required through activities like the steeplechase, as well as the intellectual challenges presented by studying dead languages. This duality of hardship and scholarly pursuit illustrates the toughening nature of education during that time, shaping character and resilience in young boys.
In practice
This quote is perfect for discussing the rigorous nature of traditional education in a history class.
Quitting, for me, means not giving up, but moving on; changing direction not because something doesn’t agree with you, but because you don’t agree with something. It’s not a complaint, in other words, but a positive choice, and not a stop in one’s journey, but a step in a better direction. Quitting-whether a job or a habit-means taking a turn so as to be sure you’re still moving in the direction of your dreams.
I think one reason, obviously, that I spend so much time in one place is that I've been lucky enough to travel a lot, and now there are other different, invisible trains that are more interesting to me.
I've never meditated in my life. I don't practice yoga nor any religion. I'm a tourist on the realm of stillness.
We travel to open our hearts and eyes and learn more about the world than our newspapers will accommodate.
I'm no Buddhist monk, and I can't say I'm in love with renunciation in itself, or traveling an hour or more to print out an article I've written, or missing out on the N.B.A. Finals. But at some point, I decided that, for me at least, happiness arose out of all I didn't want or need, not all I did.
The one thing perhaps that technology hasn't always given us is a sense of how to make the wisest use of technology.
The library is inhabited by spirits that come out of the pages at night.
The most profound lessons about journalism I've learned have been taught to me by the people I've covered.
Writing, in any sense that matters, cannot be taught. It can only be learned by each separate one of us in his own way, by the use of his own powers of imagination and perception, the ability to learn the lessons he has set for himself.
Never sit staring at a blank page or screen. If you find yourself stuck, write. Write about the scene you're trying to write. Writing about is easier than writing, and chances are, it will give you your way in.
Books are slow, books are quiet. The Internet is fast and loud.
Children are wonderfully confident in their own imaginations. Most of us lose this confidence as we grow up.
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