Standards are always out of date. That's what makes them standards.
Interpretation
Standards become obsolete over time as society evolves, which is what defines them as 'standards'.
This quote by Alan Bennett emphasizes that standards are not static; they reflect the norms and expectations of a particular time, and as society changes, so too must these standards. The acknowledgment that standards become outdated is a call to recognize that progress and growth require the willingness to adapt and re-evaluate what we consider to be the 'norm'.
In practice
In a speech about innovation in technology, one might refer to the quote to highlight the need for evolving standards.
To begin with, it's true, she read with trepidation and some unease. The sheer endlessness of books outfaced her and she had no idea how to go on; there was no system to her reading, with one book leading to another, and often she had two or three on the go at the same time.
A book is a device to ignite the imagination.
Those who have known the famous are publicly debriefed of their memories, knowing as their own dusk falls that they will only be remembered for remembering someone else.
To read is to withdraw.To make oneself unavailable. One would feel easier about it if the pursuit inself were less...selfish.
The best moments in reading are when you come across something - a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things - which you had thought special and particular to you. And now, here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out, and taken yours
...she felt about reading what some writers felt about writing: that it was impossible not to do it and that at this late stage of her life she had been chosen to read as others were chosen to write.
In reality, killing time is only the name for another of the multifarious ways by which Time kills us.
In beautiful things St. Francis saw Beauty itself, and through His vestiges imprinted on creation he followed his Beloved everywhere, making from all things a ladder by which he could climb up and embrace Him who is utterly desirable.
And I guess what I would say is that we can't think narrowly about movements for black liberation and we can't necessarily see this class division as simply a product or a certain strategy that black movements have developed for liberation.
It's a great responsibility before God, the judge who guides us, who draws us to truth and good, and in this sense the church must unmask evil, rendering present the goodness of God, rendering present his truth, the truly infinite for which we are thirsty.
Ireland sober is Ireland stiff.
Next to the right of liberty, the right of property is the most important individual right guaranteed by the Constitution . .
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