Education, the great mumbo jumbo and fraud of the age purports to equip us to live and is prescribed as a universal remedy for everything from juvenile delinquency to premature senility.
Malcolm MuggeridgeRead
Posterity will surely be amazed, and I hope vastly amused, that such slipshod and unconvincing theorizing should have so easily captivated twentieth-century minds and been so widely and recklessly applied.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects skepticism about the ideas of the past and their acceptance by society, suggesting that future generations may find them trivial.
Malcolm Muggeridge's quote critiques the intellectual trends of the twentieth century, implying that the theories and ideas of that era were superficial and poorly constructed. He expresses a hope that future generations will recognize the flaws in these thoughts, highlighting the tendency for society to embrace inadequate ideas without critical scrutiny. Muggeridge's perspective encourages reflection on the nature of belief and the importance of rigorous thinking.
Themes
TheoryCritiqueIntellectFutureSociety
In practice
Example use cases
In a lecture about critical thinking, this quote could serve as a caution against blindly accepting popular ideas.
More from Malcolm Muggeridge
All quotes →This life in us; however low it flickers or fiercely burns, is still a divine flame which no man dare presume to put out, be his motives never so humane and enlightened; To suppose otherwise is to countenance a death-wish; Either life is always and in all circumstances sacred, or intrinsically of no account; it is inconceivable that it should be in some cases the one, and in some the other.
Malcolm MuggeridgeRead
I never met a rich man who was happy, but I have only very occasionally met a poor man who did not want to become a rich man.
Malcolm MuggeridgeRead
It was a somber place, haunted by old jokes and lost laughter. Life, as I discovered, holds no more wretched occupation than trying to make the English laugh.
Malcolm MuggeridgeRead
Bad humor is an evasion of reality; good humor is an acceptance of it.
Malcolm MuggeridgeRead
The only ultimate disaster that can befall us is to feel ourselves at home on this earth.
Malcolm MuggeridgeRead
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