You don't tell people who disagree with you they'd be better off somewhere else. And you don't reduce them to stereotypes; you address them as fully formed people worthy of respect. You try to persuade them.
Peggy NoonanRead
You can get so well educated in America that your thoughts become detached from common sense. You can get so complicated in your thinking that the obvious isn't real to you anymore.
Interpretation
Education can sometimes lead to a disconnect from practical, common sense.
In this quote, Peggy Noonan highlights a paradox of education, particularly in America, where individuals may acquire extensive knowledge yet lose sight of simplicity and practicality in their thinking. This detachment from common sense can lead to complexities in thought processes that obscure the obvious truths in everyday life.
In practice
In a seminar about the importance of practical knowledge in education.
You don't tell people who disagree with you they'd be better off somewhere else. And you don't reduce them to stereotypes; you address them as fully formed people worthy of respect. You try to persuade them.
If you join government, calmly make your contribution and move on. Don't go along to get along; do your best and when you have to - and you will - leave, and be something else.
Wit penetrates; humor envelops. Wit is a function of verbal intelligence; humor is imagination operating on good nature.
Naps are nature's way of reminding you that life is nice, like a beautiful swinging hammock strung between birth and infinity.
We must try again to be alive to what the people of our country really long for in our national life: forgiveness and grace, maturity and wisdom. ...Our political leaders will know our priorities only if we tell them, again and again, and if those priorities begin to show up in the polls.
When everyone in America knows you're in a dreadful position, admit you're in a dreadful position. Don't lie about it and make them roll their eyes, tell the truth and make them blink.
We light the oven so that everyone may bake bread in it.
We must go beyond textbooks, go out into the bypaths and untrodden depths of the wilderness and travel and explore and tell the world the glories of our journey.
I don't believe there are 'struggling' readers, 'advanced' readers, or 'non' readers.
Immerse yourself in the curriculum of grace.
Knowledge is the key to stopping the spread of AIDS. Yet millions of children are missing an education. Missing their teachers who have died of the disease. Missing from class as they stay home to care for their dying mothers and fathers. Children are missing your support. United for Children. Unite against AIDS.
Tis the good reader that makes the good book; a good head cannot read amiss: in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakeably meant for his ear.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.