I am not a speed reader. I am a speed understander.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of comprehension over mere speed in reading.
Isaac Asimov's quote highlights that true understanding of a text is more valuable than the ability to read it quickly. It suggests that the essence of reading lies in grasping concepts and ideas rather than simply skimming through words. This perspective encourages readers to prioritize comprehension in their reading practices.
In practice
In a lecture about effective study habits, this quote can emphasize the importance of comprehension.
Democracy cannot survive overpopulation. Human dignity cannot survive it. Convenience and decency cannot survive it. As you put more and more people into the world, the value of life not only declines, but it disappears. It doesn't matter if someone dies.
Science does not promise absolute truth, nor does it consider that such a thing necessarily exists. Science does not even promise that everything in the Universe is amenable to the scientific process.
Democracy cannot survive overpopulation.
Although the time of death is approaching me, I am not afraid of dying and going to Hell or (what would be considerably worse) going to the popularized version of Heaven. I expect death to be nothingness and, for removing me from all possible fears of death, I am thankful to atheism.
A subtle thought that is in error may yet give rise to fruitful inquiry that can establish truths of great value.
During the century after Newton, it was still possible for a man of unusual attainments to master all fields of scientific knowledge. But by 1800, this had become entirely impracticable.
True scholarship consists in knowing not what things exist, but what they mean; it is not memory but judgment.
We read books to find out who we are. What other people, real or imaginary, do and think and feel... is an essential guide to our understanding of what we ourselves are and may become.
Children are not the people of tomorrow, but people today. They are entitled to be taken seriously. They have a right to be treated by adults with tenderness and respect, as equals. They should be allowed to grow into whoever they were meant to be - The unknown person inside each of them is the hope for the future.
American youth attributes much more importance to arriving at driver's license age than at voting age.
When you're learning, especially to write, unless you're some incredibly gifted writer, a young Malcom Gladwell, say, you need to be imitating people. You need to be imitating how they make their work, how they structure it, how they design the pieces. It gives you chops; it gives you moves.
Only when the child is able to identify its own center with the center of the universe does education really begin.
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