Teaching and writing, to me, is really just seduction; you go to where people are and you find something that they're interested in and you try and use that to convince them that they should be interested in what you have to say.
Interpretation
Teaching is about engaging others by connecting with their interests.
In this quote, Lawrence M. Krauss likens teaching and writing to the art of seduction, emphasizing the importance of understanding the audience's interests and using that insight to draw them into a conversation or idea. By identifying what others are captivated by, one can effectively persuade and inspire them to explore new concepts or viewpoints.
In practice
During a teacher training session, one might use this quote to illustrate effective teaching strategies.
The one experience that I hope every student has at some point in their lives is to have some belief you profoundly, deeply hold, proved to be wrong because that is the most eye-opening experience you can have, and as a scientist, to me, is the most exciting experience I can ever have.
If our species is to survive, our future will probably require outposts beyond our own planet.
The ultimate arbiter of truth is experiment, not the comfort one derives from one's a priori beliefs, nor the beauty or elegance one ascribes to one's theoretical models.
I cannot stress often enough that what science is all about is not proving things to be true but proving them to be false.
To the extent that we even understand string theory, it may imply a massive number of possible different universes with different laws of physics in each universe, and there may be no way of distinguishing between them or saying why the laws of physics are the way they are. And if I can predict anything, then I haven't explained anything.
The illusion of purpose and design is perhaps the most pervasive illusion about nature that science has to confront on a daily basis.
Let's stop reflexively comparing Chinese writers to Chinese writers, Indian writers to Indian writers, black writers to black writers. Let's focus on the writing itself: the characters, the language, the narrative style.
Freedom in education has many aspects. There is first of all freedom to learn or not to learn. Then there is freedom as to what to learn. And in later education there is freedom of opinion.
I speak as a man of the world to men of the world; and I say to you, Search the Scriptures! The Bible is the book of all others, to be read at all ages, and in all conditions of human life; not to be read once or twice or thrice through, and then laid aside, but to be read in small portions of one or two chapters every day, and never to be intermitted, unless by some overruling necessity.
In order to learn, one must change one's mind.
Certainly the prolonged education indispensable to the progress of society is not natural to mankind.
I did not clip the wings of my daughter to fly.
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