Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.
John SteinbeckRead
Some people there are who, being grown; forget the horrible task of learning to read. It is perhaps the greatest single effort that the human undertakes, and he must do it as a child.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Learning to read is a profound challenge that is often overlooked by adults.
In this quote, John Steinbeck highlights the significant yet often forgotten challenge of learning to read, emphasizing that this arduous journey is one of the most important undertakings in a person's life, especially during childhood. He suggests that many adults take for granted the effort it took to acquire such a crucial skill, which shapes a child's ability to interact with the world and access knowledge.
Themes
ReadingLearningEducationChildhoodSkill
In practice
Example use cases
During a seminar on literacy, one could use this quote to stress the importance of reading skills.
More from John Steinbeck
All quotes →At one point, as Samuel urges Adam to raise his boys well regardless of the blood that might be in them, Adam tells him, "You can't make a race horse of a pig." Samuel replies, "No, but you can make a very fast pig.
John SteinbeckRead
And when that crop grew, and was harvested, no man had crumbled a hot clod in his fingers and let the earth sift past his fingertips. No man had touched the seed, or lusted for the growth. Men ate what they had not raised, had no connection with the bread. The land bore under iron, and under iron gradually died; for it was not loved or hated, it had no prayers or curses.
John SteinbeckRead
The comfortable people in tight houses felt pity at first, and then distaste, and finally hatred for the migrant people.
John SteinbeckRead
People do not want advice - they want corroboration.
John SteinbeckRead
It is one of the triumphs of the human that he can know a thing and still not believe it.
John SteinbeckRead
Similar quotes
OBSOLETE, adj. No longer used by the timid. Said chiefly of words. A word which some lexicographer has marked obsolete is ever thereafter an object of dread and loathing to the fool writer . . .
Ambrose BierceRead
Spend your leisure time in cultivating an ear attentive to discourse, for in this way you will find that you learn with ease what others have found out with difficulty.
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Not every book has to be loaded with symbolism, irony, or musical language, but it seems to me that every book-at least every one worth reading-is about something.
Stephen KingRead
Anyone can be a moral individual, concerned with human rights and problems; but only a college professor, a trained expert, can solve technical problems by 'sophisticated' methods. Ergo, it is only problems of the latter sort that are important or real.
Noam ChomskyRead
Those with a gift for action, for their part, often express contempt for those whose gifts are more reflective. Men of action like to say, 'Those who can, do, those who can't, teach,' forgetting that those who teach get to write the history books.
Michael IgnatieffRead
Knowledge, like air, is vital to life. Like air, no one should be denied it.
Alan MooreRead