The supreme end of education is expert discernment in all things-the power to tell the good from the bad, the genuine from the counterfeit, and to prefer the good and the genuine to the bad and the counterfeit.
Interpretation
Education should empower individuals to make informed and ethical choices.
This quote by Samuel Johnson emphasizes that the ultimate goal of education is not just the accumulation of knowledge, but the development of the ability to discern between what is truly good and valuable versus what is false or misleading. It suggests that a well-educated person should have the skills to make moral decisions and prioritize genuine qualities over superficial or deceitful ones.
In practice
This quote could be used during a graduation speech to inspire students about the value of their education.
To be of no church is dangerous. Religion, of which the rewards are distant, and which is animated only by faith and hope, will glide by degrees out of the mind unless it be invigorated and reimpressed by external ordinances, by stated calls to worship, and the salutary influence of example.
He that reads and grows no wiser seldom suspects his own deficiency, but complains of hard words and obscure sentences, and asks why books are written which cannot be understood.
To let friendship die away by negligence and silence is certainly not wise. It is voluntarily to throw away one of the greatest comforts of the weary pilgrimage.
Fly-fishing may be a very pleasant amusement; but angling or float fishing I can only compare to a stick and a string, with a worm at one end and a fool at the other.
When any anxiety or gloom of the mind takes hold of you, make it a rule not to publish it by complaining; but exert yourselves to hide it, and by endeavoring to hide it you drive it away.
A fishing rod is a stick with a hook at one end and a fool at the other.
I went to an extreme for literary purposes because I felt all the self-help books out there were so gooey and Pollyanna-ish and nauseating. It was making me angry.
It is better to teach a few things perfectly than many things indifferently...
If more girls are educated, all of India stands to gain. The Girl Rising campaign aims to address that through various innovative initiatives that will not only help create awareness but also create a tangible platform to effect change.
We must make up our minds to be ignorant of much, if we would know anything.
We have been taught (that is, schooled) in this country to think of 'success' as synonymous with, or at least dependent upon, 'schooling,' but historically that isn’t true in either an intellectual or a financial sense. And plenty of people throughout the world today find a way to educate themselves without resorting to a system of compulsory secondary schools that all too often resemble prison.
Let's teach kids, at the kindergarten level, what the contributions of people of color were to building the United States of America.
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